Rock Hill school board casts its eyes on athletic equity

The Rock Hill school board spent five hours Friday peering into all the forgotten corners – as well as the big public spaces – used by the system’s three high schools for athletics.

The board wanted to see how equitable facilities are among among the district’s three high schools. A recent district office study recommends spending $1.72 million on the three schools to achieve equity.

Included in the district’s plan is converting existing space at South Pointe High into a wrestling room, air conditioning for auxiliary gyms at Northwestern and Rock Hill high schools, and making storage improvements and adding bleachers at all three schools.

Board members said what became evident is that some of the equity questions are an issue of age – Rock Hill (which opened in 1979 on Springdale Road) and Northwestern (1971 on West Main Street) were built with almost the same plan and nearly at the same time, South Pointe (2005 on Neely Road) is the youngest – as well as changing needs in athletics, especially girls’ athletics.

No timetable for a decision has been set. The board wants input from the three schools as well as from a parent committee appointed to study the issue.

At Northwestern High

The biggest change that would improve facilities for all students at Northwestern is air conditioning for the smaller “auxiliary” gyms, said Northwestern’s athletic director, Lauren West. The lack of air conditioning often makes the gyms unusable for regular gym classes, she said.

West also said converting a mobile classroom into a locker room-storage facility for the girls’ softball team was a great idea that could be done to address space and locker-room needs elsewhere.

At South Pointe High

South Pointe’s biggest need is finding a dedicated space for its wrestling team, said the school’s athletic director, Michael Drummond. Plans call for a classroom near the main gym to be converted into a practice space. The additional space would avoid “stacking of winter sports practices,” where several teams use the same space at different times. “That would mean our athletes would get home earlier. We have some practices that now end at 8 or 9 in the evening,” Drummond said.

Adding more windows to the baseball press box would allow the facility to also be used as a press box for softball.

At Rock Hill High

Rock Hill has repurposed its athletic spaces several times to meet its needs. A recessed seating area in the first gym was turned into a wrestling practice room many years ago. The school weight room is the old auxiliary gym.

Rock Hill athletic officials now want to convert a classroom into a training room, giving all athletes easier access to the facility.

Rock Hill officials said their biggest need is outside practice fields which are used by students during the day as well as by teams after school. Installing synthetic turf at the soccer practice field has been suggested, but is likely too costly. New fields could be built on 24 acres the district owns adjacent to the high school. New fields are not part of the proposed $1.7 million equity proposal.

District Three Stadium

The district’s equity funding plan proposes adding digital signs at District Three Stadium and District Three Stadium South (at South Pointe) to indicate who is playing there. School board members said there has been confusion in the past, particularly from visiting fans, over which of the two stadiums they need to be at. Current signs list the stadium name, but not the teams playing there.

The board also also toured the Rock House, a 1939 facility that was the site of dances during World War II. The rock building has been used for school district offices. The interior has been gutted and improvements to the building are a possibility in the board’s long-term capital improvement plan.

This story was originally published August 21, 2015 at 6:59 PM.