Sue Loughlin
The Tribune-Star
TERRE HAUTE —
The Vigo County School Board approved on Monday, an agreement with Union Hospital to provide sports medicine services for Terre Haute North Vigo, South Vigo and West Vigo high schools.
Each high school will benefit from a full-time certified athletic trainer who is a Union Hospital employee; two graduate assistant trainers from Indiana State University; a sideline physician for each home varsity football game; and several other services.
There is no cost to the school district for those services.
In exchange, Union Sports Medicine will receive the following:
• Be the exclusive sports medicine provider in terms of on-site coverage of athletic events.
• Be allowed to provide signage to the respective school recognizing Union Sports Medicine as the official sports medicine provider. The school will display the signage in highly visible locations as agreed upon by both parties.
• Full-page advertisements in all sports programs that are produced at anytime throughout the school year at each high school.
• Ten all-sport family passes per school each year.
In the past, Union has been the athletic trainer provider for North and West Vigo athletics, while Regional has provided that service at South Vigo. Those were at no charge to the school district.
In addition, VCSC has partnered with ISU to provide two graduate assistant athletic trainers for each high school. The total cost of the graduate assistant services was $66,000 a year.
In the past, VCSC paid for three of the graduate assistants ($33,000), Regional paid for one grad assistant ($11,000) and Union paid for two ($22,000).
Mick Newport, director of K-12 education, said ISU wanted to increase the pay of graduate assistants to $15,000 a year.
“Therefore in our proposal, we asked that the bidders include that they work directly with ISU and take care of all graduate assistant expenses. We anticipate this eventually to be $45,000 a year in savings to the VCSC,” Newport wrote.
The district sent out a request for proposals; Regional Hospital did not submit a proposal.
In another matter, the board approved a 2013-14 school year calendar. That year, school for students begins Aug. 19 and ends on June 5.
In other action, the board agreed to name the Otter Creek Middle School gym floor after Fred Heine, who served as the Otter Creek Junior High School principal for 25 years, from 1968 to 1993.
Sue Loughlin can be reached at (812) 231-4235 or sue.loughlin@tribstar.com.
