Mackinac Island Prepares for Season Changes in Sports

By Ryan Schlehuber

Student athletes at Mackinac Island Public School will be seeing some changes to their sports programs.

School Superintendent Jack Dehring, at the school board’s regular meeting Thursday, February 17, announced that the Michigan High School Athletics Association (MHSAA) may realign its sports seasons, starting this fall.

The changes stem from a United States District Court case, which argued that female athletes are put at a disadvantage by sports seasons that are out of sync with those of college, professional sports, and high school athletics in other states.

Girls’ volleyball, usually played in the winter, will now be played in the fall. That leaves Mackinac Island female athletes with nothing to do in the winter, said Mr. Dehring, so the school may resurrect the girls’ basketball program. Mackinac Island has not had a girls’ basketball team since the early 1990s.

By adding a girls’ basketball program, Mackinac Island will also meet Title IX requirements that schools provide female student athletes the same number of sporting opportunities as male student athletes for each season. Boys’ basketball, played in the winter, will not be changed.

The Lakers soccer team, and other soccer teams in the Northern Lights League (NLL), will not play under the MHSAA sanction since it is changing its soccer season from the fall to the spring. The Northern Lights League will, instead, schedule its own fall soccer games and continue to allow both boys and girls to play on the team.

One challenge to the soccer program, however, is that since volleyball will now also be played in the fall, the soccer team will compete with the volleyball team for players.

Mr. Dehring said student athletes are not prohibited by the school or by MHSAA from participating in two sports at the same time. The NLL, in operating on its own with soccer, will allow schools to compete with teams of fewer than 11 players.

If Mackinac Island only has nine players and the other NLL team has 12, the game will be played with nine players on each side. Also, if there are eight or fewer players on a team, game time for each of the two halves will be 32 minutes instead of the regular 40 minutes.

Mr. Dehring also announced that Ojibwe Charter School in Brimley was given a two-year conditional league membership, starting this year. The K-9 school will not be eligible to win league titles in any sport for the next two years.

Ojibwe has 120 students now and is projected to have 40 students for grades seven through 10 next year. Mr. Dehring said the conditional period will allow the league to see if its enrollment is similar to the other seven schools in the league at the end of it. If it is too large, it may not be eligible to continue in the NLL. Mackinac Island’s K-12 school, for example, has 65 students enrolled this year.

NLL schools include Mackinac Island, Beaver Island, Hannahville, Paradise, Grand Marais, and Munising Baptist.

In other business, the board directed Mr. Dehring to search for a full-time special education teacher for next year.

Kara King, last year’s special education teacher, resigned last summer. Elementary teacher Karen Allen, certified in special education, has taken over in place of Miss King for the time being, with the aid of elementary teacher Vicki Urman and Athletic Director Ryan Fox.

Mr. Dehring said the school will not be able to do the same thing next year, however, Mrs. Urman and Ms. Allen will be occupied with more classes and Mr. Fox will no longer be available because he has taken a full-time job with Bart Huthwaite’s Lean Design business on the Island. He will continue to be the school’s athletic director and boys’ basketball coach, said Mr. Dehring.

In his absence, the board agreed to hire Sarah Dehring as a special education aide. Miss Dehring, 23, Mr. Dehring’s daughter, earned a degree in elementary education from Ferris State University. She is a 1999 graduate of Mackinac Island Public School. Mr. Dehring said she will be hired as a substitute teacher, assisting mostly with special education.

As for the new special education teacher, the board hopes the person will be able to teach other subjects.

"If we can find a special education teacher who can also teach business classes, that would be great," said Trustee Trish Martin. "Really, we just want to hire a special education teacher who can also teach other things."

Miss King, for example, taught special education and psychology and was the coach for girls’ volleyball and track and field.

The school will be able to hire a new special education teacher when it receives funding from a special state legislative appropriation supporting isolated schools in northern Michigan. Dubbed Saving Paradise, the fund provides $750,000 to be split among districts at Mackinac Island, Paradise, DeTour, Bois Blanc, Grand Marais, and Beaver Island. The distribution is being determined by the Eastern Upper Peninsula Intermediate School District and part of the funding is dedicated to supporting special education programs.

The fund was appropriated in September, but miscalculations in budgeting at some schools have delayed payments to the schools, said Mr. Dehring.

Trustee Jason St. Onge reported to the board that the property dispute between the school and the city and Tom Corrigan, who owns property next to the school, is coming to a close.

The argument centered on ownership of an alleyway between the school and Mr. Corrigan’s property.

The city and school has worked out a deal with Mr. Corrigan, in which the school and city keep claim to the alleyway while Mr. Corrigan keeps property that lies on the other side of the fence, said Mr. St. Onge.

Mr. St. Onge said negotiations are ongoing and the city is seeking to keep the area zoned for single family living only.