Commentary: Frustrations mount for WS/FC high school athletics directors: ‘We are losing some really good people'

Not long after Joe McCormick, the athletics director at Glenn, delivered some fiery remarks at the Board of Education meeting on March 31 about the demands of the job and having his salary reduced by two months without warning, he received a text message from his softball coach to let him know that one of the activity buses had a leak.

He had just pulled into the driveway at his house. Instead of heading inside, McCormick headed for Glenn to inspect the bus. It was just after 9 p.m.

"I have the lights on in my truck, shining them on the bus trying to find where the leak is," McCormick said. "We were already a bus down at that point. The district took one of our assigned buses to repair over spring break and we haven't gotten it back. Not sure when we will."

It was another day in the life of an athletics director in the Winston-Salem Forsyth County Schools and another example of what the job entails.

Don Phipps, the Superintendent of the Winston-Salem Forsyth County Schools, will present a budget to the Board of Education on Tuesday.

One of the hot-button topics in that proposal will be the the pay scale for the 12 high school athletics directors in the county for the 2026-27 school year.

Will the proposed budget include the restoration of 12-month pay for the athletics directors, who were unexpectedly cut to 10 months last fall in a series of budget cuts because of a $46 million budget deficit?

At the two budget workshops last week that were open to the public and attended by members of the board, Phipps, who is also on the Board of Directors for the North Carolina High School Athletic Association, presented five different options that were being considered.

None of them included the restoration of 12-month pay for the ADs.

That is a shame.

Members of the school board that were present at the budget workshops did request to see figures on the cost to restore the AD pay to 12 months, and that number came back at $204,000.

Athletics Directors weren't the only ones impacted by last fall's belt-tightening measures.

The Exceptional Children's (EC) Department was gutted by the Reduction in Force (RIF).

That was also a shame.

So was the cruel game of musical chairs for assistant principals. So were the cuts to guidance counselors.

It was a big mess then.

It still is.

More departments appear to be on the chopping block in next year's budget, with Instructional Facilitators being the group most impacted.

There are no easy answers.

But there are a lot of questions.

And for the athletics directors in particular, not much understanding.

Frustrations boil over

At the last school board meeting on March 31, McCormick, who has been the AD at Glenn since 2013, and Patrick Cromwell, the AD at Mount Tabor the last two years, both let the board know that they would be leaving their roles before the next school year begins.

McCormick is retiring after nearly 29 years in the district. Cromwell is leaving the field of education completely after 20 years.

They will join Sean Vestal, who retired as the AD at North Forsyth in January after 28 years in the district and 30 years as a teacher and coach, and Mike Pennington, who is retiring in May after 38 years in the district.

"I've tried to stick it out and do what is best for others, but I've come to the point where I've had enough of the abuse and must escape," McCormick told the school board.

Both cited the demands of the job and the lack of understanding of what their jobs entail as part of their reason for their departures.

McCormick specifically mentioned the executive cabinet at Central Office in his remarks, an administrative group under Phipps.

"My issues particularly land with the executive cabinet, and their lack of transparency, lack of understanding about what actually occurs at the schools within our district, and their lack of empathy."

As former coaches, they are used to the long days and extended hours that the role of AD commands.

"Why stay if our effort, hours and experience are not valued and our AD responsibilities even remotely understood," Cromwell told the board.

Sixty-hour weeks are the norm in the life of an AD. Most weeks, it's even more.

"I teach first period," Cromwell said. "We all teach one class a day. Class starts for me at 8:55 (a.m.) and goes until 10:30. We get out and get started with our day as ADs after that. But I don't think any of us are being great teachers because your phone is ringing off the hook throughout class or you're getting text messages."

Juggling the multitude of tasks associated with being ADs – scheduling games and officials, hiring and supervising coaches, checking eligibility, maintaining fields and facilities, arranging transportation for away games, overseeing finances and fundraising activities, home game management to include staffing and security for varsity and junior varsity sports throughout the school year, expecting the unexpected and managing it, and playing weatherman for outdoor sports and rescheduling games because of weather – warrants 12-month positions.

The job demands that ADs have a sound understanding of the art of communication.

And their frustrations started because of a lack of communication when the decision came down to cut them to 10 months.

"The assistant principals were told about their cuts beforehand," McCormick said. "Guidance counselors were also told. We were never told. We found out when they announced it, and that was a complete slap in the face to all of us. It felt like no one understood exactly what our job entails, especially when it comes to what we do during the summer. That's when we are working on eligibility. Mowing the fields. Repairing equipment. Taking inventories. There are always teams on campus having summer workouts. It's a constant. And it feels like everyone is trying to justify their jobs now."

Allen Plaster, who has been the athletics director at East Forsyth since 2013, said that the role of the AD is not something that is limited to what is listed in a job description.

"It's at least 50 hours a week for me in the summer, and more than that when we are in school," Plaster said. "And that is not always Monday-Thursday hours. If it rains on Monday or Tuesday, I may have to go over on Saturday or Sunday to mow because that is when it has finally dried up enough to do it. They don't see us out there spreading roundup, or weed-eating the fields when it's 180 degrees in the summer and that grass has been jumping. You end up mowing four, five times a week."

Plaster cited another recent example of what the job entails.

"We had the lighting company out here a couple of weeks ago checking to make sure all of our outdoor lighting on our fields was working properly," Plaster said. "I was there until 12:45 a.m. with them until they finished because I had to turn everything off and lock up after they left."

Possible solution ‘a slap in the face'

McCormick said that ADs have been presented a proposal for being paid this summer as hourly employees that also includes summer school teachers and assistant principals.

"They have shown it to us but nothing has been approved," he said. "And honestly, it's a slap in the face. I really feel like we should be at the top-end of the scale of what was presented. That was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. That's when I decided to go to the school board meeting and speak up. We're not just fighting for ourselves. We're fighting for everyone else who will still be here and for those who will replace the ones who are leaving. We're fighting for the next people who come and do these jobs."

The summer pay proposal also was the final straw for Cromwell.

"Your summer employment offer to AD's is insulting and our work hours are abusive," Cromwell told the board on March 31, while also adding that he was on campus at Mount Tabor for 75 hours the week before.

"ADs and their pay being restored will never win a Facebook argument over EC (exceptional children), APs (assistant principals) and (guidance) counselors," Cromwell said. "But if you think the speeches you experienced this year were heated, you ain't seen nothing yet. The sports parents are coming, and the remaining ADs left won't stop them."

Catty Moore, the interim superintendent tasked to clean up the budget crisis after the departure of Trish McManus, came to an AD meeting last October after the cuts were announced.

"She apologized to us for being thrown into the cuts at the last minute," Plaster said. "She let us know that funding for the ADs to go back to 12 months would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $100,000-$115,000 and that she was working on it and hoped to have it restored before she left in November."

That didn't happen. And the ADs haven't heard from Phipps about the possibility of getting it restored.

"My biggest fear is that we are losing some really good people, and that's a shame," Plaster said. "For me, I grew up in Kernersville, I graduated from East Forsyth, and I've been back here now for 26 years, teaching, coaching, and as the AD, and I have a lot of pride in that place.

"I want our facilities to look as good as anyone's around, I want our teams to be as good as anyone's around. This is my community. All of us (ADs) are the same in that regard. We have a job where we want our programs to succeed, and we have to do our part to make that happen. A lot of that happens behind the scenes.

"But doing what they did, and them saying that essentially our jobs aren't as important anymore, that hurts. That strikes a nerve."

'We had a good little set-up in our group'

The county ADs confide in each other and help each other throughout the year. They have become a support group for one another since last fall.

"We had a good little set-up with our group," Plaster said. "If we had a wrestling question, we would call Joe (McCormick). Any kind of track/cross country issues, we would reach out to Patrick (Cromwell). If it was basketball, we would go to Mike (Pennington) and Sean (Vestal), Mitch (Adams, the AD at Reagan) and Danny (Piggott, the AD at Carver).

"If it was baseball or softball, they would come to me or Mitch. Tennis is Brad (Fisher, the AD at Reynolds.)

"Everyone in our group had their expertise in every sport. And we're losing that now. And I can't help but think that might be different if all of this didn't happen."

McCormick said that he consulted Chat GPT when he decided to start writing his remarks to say at the school board meeting.

"The first draft of it came in at around 13 minutes and I had to get that down to three minutes," McCormick said with a laugh. "And I used my full three minutes."

McCormick and Cromwell are hopeful that the remarks they made to the board were heard. They hope that it can enact some change. They hope that their colleagues will benefit from that change.

"I know I said a lot to the school board, but I truly believe our district leaders need to understand what makes the wheels turn in our county," McCormick said. "I feel like they have a top-looking down view, and they need to switch that. The need to look from the bottom up. What we do at the school level is the most important part. Right now, I really feel like they are looking at things through a reverse lens.

"We need to build the foundation back, and that's at the school level. I think our district has lost sight of that."

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