All coaching positions are now open at Fort Thomas High School.
All coaching positions now open at Fort Thomas High School
By Jon Johnson
FORT THOMAS – The Fort Thomas School District is starting with a clean slate for its athletics coaches next year and has opened up all coaching positions.
In an unprecedented move, the Fort Thomas School Board unanimously voted 5-0 at its Thursday night board meeting to open up all high school coaching positions for the 2024/25 school year. Additionally, the athletic director positions for the junior high and high school were not renewed for next year.
Fort Thomas is a public high school in Graham County with the majority of its students coming from the Bylas area of the San Carlos Apache Reservation.
According to Fort Thomas Superintendent Shane Hawkins, after a lengthy discussion, the board, made up of President Christopher Duncan, Hugh Moses Jr., Cynthia Pearson, Elliot Talgo Sr., and Vernon Poncho, decided on a clean sweep of all coaches for next year.
“Ultimately, the final say on hiring anyone in this school district belongs to the governing board,” Hawkins said. “As an administration, it’s our job to follow through on their wishes and it’s our job to do what’s best for kids and right now that’s what we’ve been asked to do.”
“We are going to open up all positions effective immediately,” Hawkins said. “Matter of fact if you go to our website right now there’s an application open for coaches and anyone and all.”
That means all current coaches, including those actively coaching spring sports, will have to re-apply if they want to continue coaching next season. Despite clearing the house, Hawkins gave his appreciation to the coaches, some of whom are championship-winning coaches who have been with the district for years.
“I support what our coaches have done in the past,” Hawkins said. “They’ve done a really great job for our kids.”
At Fort Thomas, as at many public schools, the principals and administration generally make recommendations to the board to fill extracurricular positions, including athletics, as they come. However, the board rejected renewing a couple of recommendations.
“So, the governing board decided that this year they wanted to open up all coaching positions for next school year and to open them up and allow applicants to apply and if current coaches were interested they could apply . . . And (the board) asked the administration to review the candidates, go through a hiring process, and come back with a recommendation of filling those roles for our athletic coaches.”
“It’s not something that we normally do,” Hawkins said. “We made a recommendation to the board to hire our traditional – the current people (in) certain current roles and they chose to have a conversation and it was a lengthy conversation by the board, and, ultimately they decided that they wanted all positions advertised.”
The district will next look first to have its fall sports coaches hired to prepare for next season, but no timetable has been set.
“We do have all of our coaching positions open and anyone, including the current coaches, are going to have the opportunity to apply,” Hawkins said. “The administration will go through a hiring process with a recommendation to the governing board.”
