When an area mother called Tina Martin of CARE for Children and said her Down syndrome son was angry that he couldn’t play on sports teams like his brother, Martin decided to create a special team in partnership with the Bradford Area School District.
Details on the CARE for Children Trailblazers soccer team, which concluded at the end of the fall semester, were shared by Martin and coach Matt Gilligan at Monday’s school board meeting.
Martin, executive director of CARE, said she and Ashley Carlson, director of therapy services, quickly put together a plan for a team last fall for special-needs children in the school district. She said Gilligan readily agreed to serve as coach of the team which met one night a week for more than six weeks at George G. Blaisdell Elementary School’s gymnasium. The team, which had an average of 11 players between the ages of 7 and 12, learned the basic soccer and ball-handling skills as well as teamwork and socialization, Martin said.
A number of volunteers, including teaching staff, siblings of participants, interns and high school student athletes, assisted with the program. Martin said there was also 100 percent family participation. She said the team had a scrimmage and culminated the season with a game against Bradford Area High School soccer players.
“It was a pretty small program and impacted a small number of kids, but it had a huge impact on each individual child and family,” she said before thanking the board and school district for their support. Gilligan said the Trailblazers expect to start a Tee Ball team in the spring and a swim team in the summer.
In other business of the evening, the board voted to expel a student who violated the weapons policy on Jan. 26 for a period of time “set forth in the agreement” dated Jan. 30. No other information was provided about the student or the incident.
The board also approved the sale of several properties in the City of Bradford from the McKean County Repository. Kathy Boyd, director of finance for the district, said approval is needed for the sales by two of the three taxing bodies, which are the school district, city and county. She noted that all of the properties listed had been available for purchase at the tax sale, but were not sold by the Tax Claim Bureau.
Properties that were approved by the school district for sale included:
• 17 Chautauqua Place, $517, Brittany Hollenbach.
• 15 Chautauqua Place, $300; 22 Walker Place, $250, Ricky D. Morton Jr.
• 25 Willis Ave., $1,013, Trevor Butler.
• South Avenue property, control number 91-834, $250; 9 Walker Place, $250, John Kohler.
• 290 South Ave., $250; 288 South Ave., $800, Michael and Brandy Morgan.
• 230 High St., $2,600, Dale Doleski.
• 135 High St., $125; 145 High St., $250; 161 High St., $250; 165 High St., $250; 167 High St., $250; 169 High St., $125; 179 High St., $250; 85 South Hillside, $250, F.J. Young Co. District officials said the company plans to return these properties to forest land.
• 56 East Main St., $500, Deshina Barber.
• 73 West Corydon St., $700; 19 Buffalo St., $300; 3 Chautauqua Place, $1,000, Fred Curtis.
In other matters, the board approved the resignation of Robert Curcio from the Transportation Department, effective Jan. 23; and the resignation of Janelle Turk as assistant play director for the 2014-15 school year.
In her report, Superintendent Katharine Pude told the board the Winter Fest for families and the community will be held on Feb. 21 at Floyd C. Fretz Middle School. The event will include a full day of reading, sledding and snow science activities. In addition, she said the district Science Fair will be held from 6 to 8:30 p.m. May 22 at Fretz.
Recognition was also extended by Pude to Skills USA students who received gold medals during District 10 Competition in New Castle. Students who received the medals were Jason Green, Amelia Chapman, Tyler Blair, Jacob Soto, Nick Coffman, Max Shanks, Krystin Keyes and Alex Visbisky. The students will travel to Hershey in April to compete at the state level.
Congratulations were also extended by Pude to Samantha Burkhouse, Olivia Keltz and Hannah Leposa, who have been selected to perform at the PMEA Region II Concert Band Festival on Saturday, and to Bryn Manion who was selected to attend the journalism and media conference in Washington.
