Clovis schools, city partner to build youth programming

Clovis Municipal Schools look to partner with the city of Clovis to create a proposal for an elementary youth program to build future leaders and athletes.

Deputy Superintendent of Operations Jay Brady, along with City Manager Justin Howalt, presented the new partnership to the board at Tuesday’s meeting. Brady said the program will start in June at “Camp Wildcat,” which has hosted about 1,000 students annually the past three summers.

“We have been working diligently together for the last couple of years. Talking about youth programming and what we can do,” Brady said.

One of the missions of this partnership is to teach children the basics of sports before they are in high school. Brady said this will give students the opportunity to build character and alleviate some of the workload for the high school coaches.

“When they dribble a ball, pass a ball, catch a ball, kick a ball, whatever it is there is a form and technique that needs to be taught and then inspire them to be at that competitive level with the vision to dominate,” Brady said.

Co-ed flag football, football, volleyball, basketball and track are the first five sports Brady said the proposal will be focusing on. He said there is room to grow in the future with sports and fine arts, however what the city and district have in store now is something that can be feasible starting this summer.

The facilities and programs that would be established would only be available to CMS students, said Brady. He said the focus of the program is to grow the potential of “a future Wildcat.” The seasons would coincide with the sports seasons of the high school.

“This program is gonna run just like high school athletics … Elementary kids will be tied to discipline, attendance, as well as academic progress. … You can’t participate if you’re not toeing the line and doing the things that you’re supposed to,” Brady said.

“Those are our future adults of our community and we need to have adults that contribute to society and make our community great,” Howalt said.

Brady said the programs will be free for students.

“We want our community to be involved. We want to compete with classes out there in our elementary, so that kids can understand sportsmanship within a competition in a healthy way,” Brady said.

He said planning for financing the program and setting up facilities from the city is still being processed and there is more information yet to come to the board. Brady said there should be a final proposal officially presented for the board’s approval in the spring semester.

Brady said residents of the school district are encouraged to fill out a survey for parent volunteering. So far they have received 250 responses, Brady said, but “substantially more” are needed for accurate data.