Schools Change Title, Duties for Athletics Boss

The Board of Education has changed the job description of the new school athletic boss, along with tweaking the job description.

Athletic Director Ed Tranchina's successor will be titled the supervisor of athletics, a move Schools Superintendent Margaret Dolan said is in line with other school districts statewide. The job will now include supervision of physical education teachers. Tranchina is retiring at the end of this month.

"One reason was before this job did not involve the supervision of staff in the schools," Dolan said during Tuesday evening's BOE meeting. "This now requires the supervision of staff who teach physical education."

Dolan said physical education teachers have been supervised by building principals in the past. She said the new job description for the athletic department head will not completely change reporting arrangements for physical education teachers. She said the principals will retain a supervisory role, along with the one taken on by the supervisor of athletics. This would be similar to the role played by the supervisor of fine arts.

The district is currently in a search process for Tranchina's successor. Several weeks ago, BOE human resources director Barbara Ball outlined the process to find the new athletics supervisor. This included a review of applications which Ball is currently conducting, along with a series of interviews through a three stage process. She said the district is looking to hire a replacement for Tranchina by the end of June. At the same time, the district is also looking for a replacement for retiring McKinley School Principal Claudia Andreski.

The athletics job description remains mainly the same, with Tranchina's successor overseeing interscholastic sports in the school district, along with developing new sports programs and enforcing student conduct in athletics. This will be along with the duties involved in overseeing physical education teachers.

The discussion over the job description did not include BOE member Mitch Slater's proposal to combine the athletic job with another position in the district, either that of a coach or a department head. Several neighboring districts have done this, including Cranford. At the time of Slater's suggestion, Dolan said the idea was considered and nixed due to the size and scope of Westfield's athletic program. Dolan said a study of similar sized programs convinced Westfield to keep the job as a stand alone position.

Dolan said Tuesday evening that there is nothing to prevent a change to the job description going forward.

BOE members were enthusiastic about the expansion of the current job description with the teacher supervision duties.

"We're actually expanding this role," BOE Vice President Ann Cary said.