Officials say NBC best fit

SALEM - The school board voted unanimously to join the Northeastern Buckeye Conference on Monday beginning with the 2011-2012 school year.

The NBC began league play in 1989 and includes eight schools in Stark, Carrollton and Mahoning counties.

Salem was a member of the Metro Athletic Conference from 1994 until 2008, then became a member of the All-American Conference, both based in Youngstown.

Superintendent Tom Bratten said after the AAC dropped to four teams last year and three were in Salem's tier, Liberty, Lakeview and Hubbard, "that put us in a bind."

He said the choice was to join the red tier that included Canfield, Poland, Niles, Howland and Beaver Local or turn independent.

Bratten explained the AAC later rescinded the alignment but that was after the NBC approached Salem after Northwest, unable to pass levies, dropped out.

"The NBC asked if we would be interested," Bratten said, explaining that high school Principal Dr. Joe Shivers and junior high school Principal Sean Kirkland worked the due diligence side as Salem began investigating the option.

Bratten said the big concern was league stability.

"The majority of coaches (Salem has 17 team sports)

voted overwhelmingly to join the NBC," Bratten said, adding that "we made sure to include the recommendations of the high school and junior high school principals."

The decision came down to would it be good for all of us, Bratten said.

Salem looked at the Inter-Tri County League last year and again this year, but the ITCL it wasn't interested either time.

"We were not of interest" to them, said Bratten.

Board member Brad Myers asked Bratten to address the "quality" of the NBC and Bratten explained he went back to 1993 when he was at Marlington and noted the league was 20 years old.

He called his involvement with the league change "a blessing and curse" meaning that by recommending a league with integrity and known character "I can sleep with that."

He said the "curse" dealt with his being from that area but it was "out in the open."

Bratten explained, "The NBC is the only thing open to us, because of that we've made sure to do out due diligence.

"We wanted as much transparency as possible," he said, adding the "valued opinions of the high school and junior high school principals" helped diffuse emotions running through the change.

Myers said there was a "fair amount of instability in the leagues we've been in" but called his vote "difficult decision."

Board President Steve Bailey, who was re-elected president during the organizational meeting, called it a "hard decision" and an "emotional" one saying he was used to playing all the teams to the north.

Both Bailey and Myers graduated from Salem.

Bailey said all the coaches surveyed "went a long way toward my decision" and board member Nick Bush said emotion, since he was "from the outside" (not a SHS graduate), didn't play as big a role with him.

He commended Bratten and staff for their due diligence saying it seemed to be a "good fit" with the open support from the staff.

"We can be competitive there," Bush said, adding, "the amount of open enthusiastic support from the staff made it fairly easy for me."

In other business, with a consent agenda, the board also approved substitute teaching positions for the 2010 school year for Nicole Wargo; classified substitute employees, Cheryl Prior, Paul Rothbrust; FMLA leave for Carol Hrvatin, a junior high school teacher for two months; and FMLA leave for Sandi Meyers, a cafeteria employee from Jan. 4 to April 15.

The board also approved hiring Shawnee Carlisle, retroactively to Jan. 4 and Gretchen Kalinay retroactively to Dec. 7, 2009.

It also hired Ray Swink as supervisor for on-line learning at a per diem of $201.89 from Feb. 1, 2010 to July 31, 2010 on an on needed basis and from Aug. 1, 2010 to July 31, 2011, not to exceed 240 days.

Larry Shields can be reached at lshields@salemnews.net