Red Wing School Board briefs

Cheerleading schedule discussed

After a parent raised concerns about the number of games cheerleaders attend, Red Wing School Board discussed solutions that would have cheer teams attending more games. Currently, cheer teams attend home and away football games and about half of the boys and girls basketball games.

Board member Steve Anderson questioned why cheerleaders don’t attend hockey games. “It’s kind of ironic that one of our most successful teams doesn’t get cheering,” he said.

Supt. Karsten Anderson said the current schedule is set up to allow cheer coaches to have similar time commitments to those of cross-country, tennis and golf coaches. There are concerns that adding more time commitments may increase coaching turnover and make the cheerleading program hard to sustain.

Steve Anderson added that the only reason a coach needs to be at games is to supervise the cheerleaders as they do lifts. He proposed that the cheerleaders don’t do lifts at hockey games, eliminating the need for a cheer coach to be there.

But board member Emily Baldwin raised concerns about that proposal. “Who’s supporting those girls if we don’t have the coach there?” she asked.

Other solutions included having separate cheer teams for each sport. This would allow cheerleaders to be at more games without adding time commitments to individual coaches or cheerleaders.

No decisions were made, though board members said they would continue to look into the issue.

Personnel changes

The board approved the following personnel changes:

New hires: Eric Klein, long-term language arts substitute at RWHS, effective Jan. 17; Cameron Forsberg, special education paraprofessional at RWHS, effective Jan. 21.

Resignation: Ashley Kincaid, Community Education secretary and part-time substitute assistant lead with Kids Junction, effective Jan. 4.

Meeting watch

Tuesday’s meeting lasted about two hours. All board members were present.

— Compiled by Sarah Gorvin, staff writer

Tags: red wing, school board, government