Athens keeps athletic trainer

School district works out shared agreement with Colby

A number of area schools, including Athens and Stratford, were left scrambling to find alternate options for a licensed athletic trainer after Marshfield Clinic Health System announced in March it would no longer provide the free service to them.

Local school districts have balked at the high cost of contracting with Marshfield Clinic for it to provide a licensed athletic trainer at sporting events. The Athens and Colby school districts, however, wanted to figure out a way to keep Maddie Oleksy as their athletic trainer.

On Monday night, both the Athens and Colby school boards voted in favor of contracting with Health in Motion to have Oleksy as their athletic trainer for the upcoming 2023-24 school year. Athens and Colby will each pay $20,000 for Oleksy and her new employer, Health in Motion, will pay for the other half of her yearly salary.

The Athens Board of Education approved the contract with Health in Motion pending minor changes in the language of the contract. Athens School Board member Tom “Chummo” Ellenbecker said if Athens High School continues to offer sports to student athletes then it must also have an athletic trainer because they “go hand in hand.”

Oleksy has served as a licensed athletic trainer working in Athens schools for the past 14 years and she was relieved to hear on Monday night that both the Athens and Colby school boards approved to bring her back this coming 2023-24 school year under an agreement with Health in Motion. Oleksy gave a speech during Monday’s meeting in Athens about the importance of schools having a licensed athletic trainer.

Athens School District parent Courtney Slivinski and Laurel Rudolph, medical director of sports medicine at Marshfield Clinic for the past 29 years, attended Monday’s Athens School Board meeting to support Oleksy.

Stratford School District hasn’t been as fortunate as Athens and Colby are to secure an alternate agreement to have a licensed athletic director for the upcoming 2023-24 school year yet. Craig Martens, Stratford middle/high school athletic director, said on Tuesday the school district might need to start this school year without having an athletic trainer while it continues to look for a solution.

“Earlier this year we found out from Marshfield Clinic that its free services for an athletic trainer were changing,” Martens said. “When we met with Marshfield Clinic in March to discuss the athletic training services, the cost of $40,000 for a part-time trainer was just way too much for our budget. Most of the surrounding school districts thought the same thing.”

“Marshfield Clinic came up with an option where we could share a trainer with three other school districts, but after talking with the local schools, they thought this was not a good option. That cost would’ve been $26,700 for each school. There would be a branding discount of $3,500 if we went with this option. This is where Marshfield Clinic Health System is branded as the exclusive sports medicine provider and we would need to display the information in athletic areas where sports medicine services are provided including on banners, game announcements and program advertisements.” “I have been trying to get Aspirus to take us, but we are having little luck with that option because they are currently working with other local school districts around Wausau and they don’t want to change anything.”

Rick Parks, Marathon School District superintendent, said today (Wednesday) the school district has a contract with Bone & Joint in Wausau to provide a licensed athletic trainer.

“Our trainer is Pam Warren and she attends events as she is able (some of each of the levels potentially),” Parks said.

In other news:

The Athens School Board met in closed session during Monday’s meeting to discuss hiring to fill vacancies, resignations, layoffs and retirements related to specific professional staff positions, support staff positions and co-curricular positions.

The school board also met in closed session to discuss efforts to address a personnel matter, including counsel from the district’s legal counsel. The school board also discussed in closed session the performance evaluation of Andrea Sheridan, schools superintendent, while she joined in closed session.

The school board reconvened from closed into open session to vote to “approve the administrative contracts for our budget cuts.”

On Tuesday morning, The Record-Review submitted an open records request to Athens School District to obtain copies of the administrative contracts approved by the school board at Monday’s meeting for the 2023-24 school year. The Record-Review has also sought in the open records request to obtain copies of the administrative contracts for this past 2022-23 school year.

The Athens School District has ten days to respond to this request. As of press time, the paper has not heard from the district.