RHS school committee thinks baseball next summer

0

A proposal for a wooden bat baseball team franchise was one of many agenda items at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School (MVRHS) District school committee’s first meeting of the new school year Monday evening.

Superintendent of schools James Weiss said the Carminucci Sports Group, represented at the meeting by Chris Carminucci, Darren Harrison-Panis, and Hannah Schley, submitted a draft agreement to the school committee’s land use subcommittee, requesting use of the high school’s baseball field during the summer for a Martha’s Vineyard wooden bat baseball team.

The team would be a franchise within the Collegiate Wooden Bat League. Mr. Carminucci said college-age players would be recruited for the Vineyard team from all over the country, with a preference given to local players. MVRHS baseball coach Gary Simmons supported the proposal, which he said would benefit the high school in field maintenance and the equipment the Sports Group offered to provide. The school committee agreed to move to draft an agreement.

The committee also approved a request from MVRHS principal Steven Nixon for a school calendar adjustment for three annual faculty in-service sessions. School will be dismissed at 11 am on September 29, February 9, and April 13, to allow teachers three, two hour and 45 minute in-service sessions to begin preparations for an upcoming New England Association of Schools and Colleges assessment visit that is a requirement for accreditation.

Mr. Nixon also gave the committee a list of 17 new and reassigned teaching personnel for the current school year. Many of them are replacing teachers who retired. The most recent include computer and technical education teacher Jeffrey Bernier, who retired June 30, and special education teacher Arthur Cormier, who will retire November 5, after 33 years.

Mr. Nixon reported that over the summer, the culinary arts kitchen and dining room was damaged by water seeping into a wall, resulting in mold. Oak Bluffs offered to let the culinary arts students use the kitchen at the Sailing Camp until repairs and mold remediation work is finished, which Mr. Nixon estimated would be in three to four weeks.

The school committee’s next meeting is October 4, at 7 pm, in the MVRHS library conference room.