The Fulton Board of Education made the motion to move forward in favor of a District Title IX Athletic Committee recommendation that would add seventh and eighth grade girls' softball and seventh and eighth grade wrestling in the 2016 -17 academic year.
Assistant Superintendent Suzanne Hull, a member of the committee, said because initial sports interest survey results from middle school students in grades six and seven lacked participation, the committee conducted a second survey, which yielded slightly more satisfactory results. Softball and soccer received the same number of votes from girls while boys voted for wrestling.
Hull said while other conference schools do not offer a girls' soccer program at the middle school level, three other conference schools offer a middle school softball program. She added that Fulton is the only school in the conference that does not offer a wrestling program at the middle school level.
Based on the higher response rate from the second survey and its results that were reviewed in July, the athletic committee recommended adding both sports.
Hull said the additional athletic programs would require an additional trip bus to accommodate conflicts in scheduling and to account for the additional student participants.
"We've only got four, so you add two more sports, you're gonna pick up two more nights a week," Fulton Public Schools Director of Transportation Bryan Abbott told the board. "It's just a matter of numbers. It's hard to get all of our trips done on the four trip buses that we've got right now.You pick up two more sports, you're gonna have to have for next season another bus."
Fulton Board of Education Member Rodney Latty said although an additional trip bus would cost about $80,000 and an additional driver would be needed, having another trip bus would benefit FPS.
"It wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing to have another bus at your disposal for the remainder of the time when these sports are not in season," Latty said in response to Abbott's comment.
Latty added that there are already overlapping needs for using the buses currently owned and purchasing another bus "in reality, wouldn't be like buying another bus just for softball - you're buying a bus."
Fulton High School Activities Director David Milligan said the bus use is "maxed out" during the fall because it's the busiest sports season for Fulton schools.
Hull believes that the Fulton community boasts strong softball and wrestling programs for children and adolescents, but understands that some children cannot afford to join traveling club teams.
"We (the committee) believe that it's extremely costly to do traveling anything," Hull said. "By having middle school wrestling because all the other conference schools have middle school wrestling, maybe it would provide the opportunity for those kids who can't afford to travel with the club or the opportunity to try wrestling. We might find some diamonds in the rough."
She added that Fulton had a wrestling program at the middle school level "quite a while back."
Milligan said the limit to the number of games for softball and wrestling programs at the middle school level would be 10 regular season games plus any games played during two tournaments.
"With the conference schools' wresting, they'll probably schedule us and whether we could find other non-conference schools to get up to a 10th match might take a year or two but it's doable," Milligan said.
He said the location for middle school wrestling matches has yet to be determined, but said they'll be held either at the middle school or FHS.
The practice field for middle school softball players would be held where P.E. classes currently play softball, and games would be played at FHS, Hull said.