New Athletic Director Aims to Boost Student Participation at Hull High School
Kistner plans to understand reasons for non-participation while superintendent explores coastal education partnerships
HULL - April 7 - Benjamin Kistner, Hull High School's new athletic director, aims to increase student participation in sports programs while focusing on building relationships with student-athletes.
Kistner, who is in his third week on the job, presented his initial observations and goals to the School Committee at their April meeting.
"About 65% of our student population are student-athletes. About 67 of those are multi-sport and then about 20 are involved in all three," Kistner says, highlighting the importance of athletics to the school community.
The new athletic director comes to Hull from Holbrook Middle High School, where he faced similar challenges with participation numbers in a small school district.
"One of the things that I did kind of break down and look into is we do have around 65% of our student population are student athletes," Kistner explains. "This kind of just exemplifies how important athletics are to the school system, to the community, to the town, to our students who obviously want to get involved."
Kistner plans to develop a questionnaire for students to better understand why they enjoy athletics or why they may have stopped participating.
"Is this a sport that they played before and they no longer play now? What is the case? Why is that so?" Kistner says. "A lot of it is just getting with, understanding the information at hand."
School Committee member Regan Yakubian expresses support for Kistner's student-centered approach.
"I love hearing you say you want to hear from the students first, because I think that's the best way for you to kind of get a pulse of what's happening here coming from them," Yakubian says.
Committee member Kyle Conley encourages Kistner to maintain high expectations for student-athletes.
"I would just love to reiterate what Regan was just saying in that reaching out to students, getting to them, super important," Conley says. "And as you develop those relationships, just want to really encourage you to make sure that you're holding all of our student athletes to really high levels, high expectations and accountability for behavior."
Courtney Littlefield, another committee member, suggests collaboration between youth sports organizations and high school programs to address the challenges of having 7th and 8th graders eligible for high school sports.
"I think one thing that there is room for opportunity is just everybody getting on the same page," Littlefield says. "We're around the 7th grade waiver. Now we have the 8th graders up at the high school. So a little bit of gray area, right, with the youth sports going up until the 8th grade."
Kistner agrees that collaboration is essential.
"I think it would be beneficial for us to be able to just sit down and kind of talk through some of it," he says. "I'm one to want to collaborate. I think it's beneficial for everybody, not only for us at the high school, but for you as youth sports."
In addition to hiring an athletic director, Superintendent Michael Jette updates the committee on efforts to develop coastal education partnerships that would leverage Hull's unique location.
"High School Principal Shaw and I and Christine Cappadona, our curriculum director, have reached out to some other organizations on the South Shore to understand what options and opportunities might exist for us," Jette says.
The superintendent explains that rather than finding an existing program to join, the district will likely need to develop its own curriculum.
"It's not like there's an existing curriculum based program that we can partner up with," Jette says. "It's something that we're going to have to explore some options to build some stuff in-house."
Committee Chair David Twombly suggests the potential for a vocational-style program that could attract students from across the South Shore.
"What I would envision something like almost like vocational type of school where and even though it would be mostly focused on Hull students but maybe there's some students on the South Shore that we could actually bring in somehow," Twombly says.
Jette confirms they share similar visions.
"I think we're dreaming very similar dreams," Jette responds. "That's part of what we're talking about but that's a huge undertaking. That's a multi-year piece but you know if you build something so good that people want it then I think there's a lot of opportunities there."
Committee member Liliana Hedrick supports the coastal education initiative.
"I think that we should take advantage of where we're at so appreciate you looking into that," Hedrick says.
Other highlights from the meeting include:
* State Senator Patrick O'Connor and State Representative Joan Meschino presented a Beacon Hill update, discussing education funding and potential reforms to Chapter 70 funding.
* The committee began the superintendent evaluation process, with members receiving forms to complete by April 22.
* Superintendent Jette shared that Hull students are taking MCAS testing seriously despite recent changes to graduation requirements.
* The committee heard feedback from community outreach efforts suggesting a need for more after-school programming for 6th and 7th grade students beyond sports and theater.
* Jacobs Elementary School's sea creatures project was featured in Scholastic News, bringing national attention to the school's environmental initiatives.
The School Committee will meet again on April 28 to continue discussions on these initiatives and review the superintendent evaluation.