BLOOMDALE – Elmwood Local Schools has a volleyball coach.
At Monday’s meeting, the board of education voted 4-1 to hire Archer Spencer as the head girls volleyball coach for the 2022-23 school year.
“He has had a lot of experience in the volleyball world,” said board President Debbie Reynolds.
She said it was her understanding he has led the club volleyball team at Bowling Green State University, where he is a sophomore majoring in sales and marketing education.
He also is working with the Perrysburg program and assisted with the boys volleyball program at a high school in Dublin, she said.
Spencer lives in Bowling Green, and his resume outlined skills including team building, exercise planning, recruitment and youth sports coaching.
He is a 2020 graduate of Olentangy High School near Columbus and since 2020 has been a volunteer volleyball assistant at Dublin Jerome High School, where he has worked closely with the volleyball coach and helped plan practices.
Reynolds said she talked to the Dublin athletic director, who had nothing but praise for Spencer.
Two attempts to rehire last year’s coach, Kristine King, failed 3-2 both times with Reynolds, Melanie Davis and Jeremie Pennington voting no.
Athletic Director Kevin Wolfe said in June after the second “no” vote that he had received three applications and one was very promising.
Reynolds also opposed King’s hiring last year. She said at the June meeting she believes the district needed to go in a new direction.
Superintendent Tony Borton said Monday that Spencer is working on the necessary paperwork, and he hopes to have him start soon.
Before the vote, board member Ryan Lee said he believed the board was working outside its obligation and responsibility in vetting a coach.
“We should not engage in the daily operations – we employ a superintendent to do that,” he read from a prepared statement.
“I am aware that staff are now concerned that they can no longer share opposing views to the board because they will be next,” he said. “This concerns me greatly.”
Employees must be provided constructive feedback and given time to work on areas of refinement in order to demonstrate whether they are unable or unwilling to get better, Lee said.
“Employees of this district are clearly mistrusting of the board and our ability to respond to concerns in a reasonable manner,” he said. “To the teachers and administrators who feel that we are being arbitrary, I am sorry.”
He said he will do his best to support the new coach and his staff.
“Our student athletes and children deserve that,” Lee said.
“He clearly has some understanding of volleyball,” Lee said of Spencer after he voted in support of the hiring. “He has participated in activities related to the sport.
“We hope he’ll do well and are excited for him to get things started for the girls,” Lee said.
Also at the meeting, the board:
• Hired Audra Benschoter as assistant volleyball coach.
• Accepted the resignation of elementary secretary Amy Hoiles, effective July 25.
• Learned that unlike Nexus, the Rover pipeline has not reached a settlement.
“We are Rover, we are not Nexus,” said Treasurer Jenalee Niese.
Rover is not due back in court until August.
Niese said districts within the Nexus pipeline are getting 68% of the assessed value. Elmwood currently is receiving about 39.5% of Rover’s initial assessed value.
“If the district were to get a settlement even close to where Nexus is at, it could receive back tax payments, interest and penalties, she said.
“We can’t automatically assume that Rover is going to settle the way Nexus has,” Niese said. “But we have hope.”
