School community rec programs passed to parks department

“When we looked at our mission statement and looked at the school district’s mission statement, we really did feel like parks and rec is a good home for it,” HRVPRD Director Mark Hickok told board members during last week’s meeting. “I think we came up with a pretty good plan.”

The transfer has been in the works since July 2020, when HRCSD Superintendent Rich Polkinghorn reached out to Hickok to initiate a conversation “in an effort to streamline our partnership with respect to our facilities,” Polkinghorn said. This spring, the two met frequently to review intergovernmental agreements from around Oregon as well as other states and began drafting an IGA between HRCSD and HRVPRD. The draft was finished this summer, and then sent out for review to legal counsel, he said.

This isn’t the first transfer of former Community Education programs from the district to other entities. Adult continuing education has already been moved to Columbia Gorge Community College, Prime Time after school care to Right At School, and preschool programs to Mid-Columbia Children’s Council. Polkinghorn said that the school district looked to organizations “whose mission aligned to a specific function of community education,” and that the parks department was a natural fit for youth and adult recreation and sports programs.

The primary goal is to “improve the economy and efficiency of our tax revenues and resources to maximize the benefits of our constituents,” Polkinghorn said. Both will share and coordinate the scheduling of facilities for their respective programs, though there is not yet a finalized facility use agreement. The school district is sharing its software to the parks department for scheduling, registration and fee collection.

“HRCSD is committed to financially supporting the Hood River Parks and Recreation District for up to three years for the administration of this program,” Polkinghorn said, noting it will take time for HRPRD to hire staff and implement programming. Community Education stopped operating in March 2020, when its director resigned.

“The financial commitment is that the school district is going to be able to support two full time employees, one coordinator for community education and one more admin position and give us a little bit of a startup money and transfer some of the equipment, or all of it, over to us … in order to help get us going,” Hickok told his board.

“These things take time, so for all the people saying, ‘Hey, when does youth basketball start?’ — we definitely want youth basketball to happen and we’re going to work to make that a reality, just as we have with youth soccer and football and a couple other programs that are running this fall even though there is no official Community Education and we don’t have them yet,” Hickok said. “But it will be more spring/summer before we are really up and running and that’s at a pretty fast pace.”

As the IGA has now been approved by both districts, the parks department plans to advertise for the two positions and hopes to have them filled by late fall. The board agreed that it “strongly preferred” at least one of the candidates to be bilingual and bicultural.

Hickok noted the new coordinator will need to hit the ground running, as planning for summer programs starts in November and are finalized in February or early March.

The full IGA can be viewed in the Sept. 8 board packet at www.hoodriver.k12.or.us — click on the School Board tab, then Board Meeting Packets; click the Board Meeting Sept. 8, 2021, link, and then Board Meeting Packet Sept. 8, Complete. The agreement begins page 110.