Whitley BOE approves plans for turf softball, baseball fields

Athletics upgrades at Whitley County High School are planned to continue, as initial construction documents for a project at the baseball and softball fields have now been approved. 

The Whitley County Board of Education took the first steps in the next phase of upgrades at WCHS during their regular monthly meeting last Thursday, where they unanimously voted to hire Ross Tarrant Architects to perform the work on the fields as well as documents relating to the upgrades. Ross Tarrant has been the architect for the other recent construction and upgrades at that campus, including the football field, Career and Technical Education Building and the track at Whitley County Middle School.

Beth Bauer, a project manager with Ross Tarrant, was present for last week’s meeting. According to Bauer, the project at the baseball and softball fields would consist of converting the existing natural sod to artificial turf. The approved documents include drainage and the stone bases.

“It’s a full system,” said Bauer.

While the project still has to go through the bidding process, Ross Tarrant has estimated the cost of the project to be approximately $2.1 million. 

A site survey was also approved by the board during last week’s meeting for the two fields, which is expected to take four weeks to be completed.

Once work begins, it is anticipated to be complete before the start of the next baseball and softball season.

In other board of education business:

– The board’s yearly evaluation of Superintendent John Siler was performed during a closed session at last week’s meeting.

Board members met in executive session for approximately one hour to complete the evaluation, which is done using a competency-based system where the superintendent and board work together to gauge performance, identify areas of competency and determine any growth needed for the superintendent to focus on in a given year.

The system is based around seven standards of leadership for the superintendent—strategic leadership, instructional leadership, cultural leadership, human resource leadership, managerial leadership, collaborative leadership and influential leadership—and superintendents receive one of four grades, ranging from “growth required” to “exemplary.”

Upon returning from executive session, Board Chair Brenda Hill announced that Siler had received an “exemplary” grade in all seven standards.

– Board members voted to accept a grant from the Kentucky Department of Education for preschool development.  The grant will provide the school district $300,000 between July 1 and Dec. 25, 2025.