Board: Dallas job to remain open
First Posted:
DALLAS – The Dallas School Board voted Wednesday morning to keep the position of head high school football coach open after a motion to rescind its action at its December meeting to open it and retain Ted Jackson failed.
Wednesday’s vote doesn’t mean Jackson is out of the running for the position. He, Berwick ninth-grade head coach Scott Dennis and former Dallas assistant Bob Zaruta are three of the final four candidates who were brought back for second interviews. Two sources also said Wednesday that former King’s College coach Rich Mannello never applied for the Dallas position, contrary to a previous report.
The first motion Wednesday was to rescind the board’s action during the December meeting when it opened the position by an 8-1 vote and then to retain Jackson for a 28th season. Dr. Bruce Coslett, Dr. Bruce Goeringer and Fred Parry voted in favor of the motion. Karen Kyle, Maureen Matiska, Charles Preece, Larry Schuler and Catherine Wega voted against it, and the motion failed 3-5.
Goeringer was the only board member to vote against opening the position in December.
The second motion was to affirm and ratify the decision to open the position and appoint a head coach as soon as possible. That passed 6-2, with Goeringer and Parry voting against it.
Board member Colleen Slocum was present at the meeting, but did not vote because she was not at the due process hearing for Jackson on Monday. Wega, the board president, said Slocum was out of state Monday.
The board went into executive session immediately following the meeting.
Attorney Kimberly Borland, who represented Jackson at Monday’s hearing, issued the following statement concerning Wednesday’s board meeting:
“The evidence at the hearing clearly did not support the termination of Coach Jackson. Some Board members understood that, but, apparently, not all of them. The Board members made their original decision based upon incomplete information, but now they no longer have that excuse. Ignoring the evidence presented at the hearing is a terrible lesson in civics that these Board members should not have taught the students they were elected to serve. We have a number of options and we are considering all of them. We appreciate the fact the some Board members listened, kept an open mind and took this process seriously.”
Borland said those options could involve the courts.
“I think the statement speaks for itself,” Borland said. “There’s the right go to the Court of Common Pleas over this. We have both federal and state options.”
About a dozen people turned out for the early morning meeting, well under the few hundred that were at Monday’s hearing and the December school board meeting.
Nick Zapoticky, the president of the Gridiron Club, and his son Ryan, the starting quarterback, were both hoping that Jackson would be brought back.
“Very disappointed,” Nick Zapoticky said. “This isn’t an action against Ted Jackson Sr., it’s an action against Dallas football. In my opinion, they are giving Dallas football the death penalty because they are removing coaches from seventh grade up, and to rebuild that with one prospective coach coming from out of the area or a coach who last coached four years ago doesn’t bode well for Dallas football.”
Ryan Zapoticky was the only player to attend the meeting.
However, Jackson received noticeable support from his players at the December board meeting and at Monday’s hearing.
“It’s going to be a large blow,” Zapoticky, a junior, said of the possibility of Jackson being replaced. “A lot of people are talking about not playing. … It’s going to be bad.”
William Gately Jr. arrived shortly after the meeting ended. His son, Bill, is a sophomore on the football team and also plays baseball. He said he had to get his son a gym membership because the weight room has been closed since the position was opened. Jackson also was the weightlifting coach.
“My son is extremely happy with the coaching situation,” Gately said. “He loves Ted Jackson Sr., he loves Junior (Ted’s son, assistant coach Ted Jackson Jr.) He has never said one thing bad about any of the coaching staff.”
Goeringer opened the 25-minute meeting asking why there was no agenda available. When Wega said that there was only one item on the agenda, Goeringer continued to insist copies be made. He also asked for copies of the two resolutions.
Goeringer wanted the board to vote on the resolutions together, but school board solicitor Ben Jones said that only one motion could be voted on at a time.
Kyle then read a statement saying in part the vote “isn’t about being super-sensitive or misunderstanding each other. It is about authority, it is about respect, it is about holding ourselves accountable to a higher standard.”
At Monday’s hearing, Dallas high school principal Jeffrey Shaffer testified that Jackson publicly embarrassed athletic director Nancy Roberts when pregame introductions were neglected during a home District 2 Class 3A playoff game against Scranton Prep. Shaffer gave Jackson a negative review at the end of the season.
After the vote to rescind opening the position and to retain Jackson failed, Kyle read the resolution to affirm and ratify the decision to open the position and appoint a head coach as soon as possible.
Coslett voted against retaining Jackson during an April 2009 meeting. Jackson was kept by a 5-4 vote back then. He also voted to open the position in December, but changed his vote after Monday’s hearing.
“I sat there with an open mind Monday,” Coslett said. “I sat there as part of the quote-unquote jury. I believe his case was well stated.”
