Coach hired over parent protests

CANFIELD — Parents who are questioning fundraising accounts maintained by a coach asked the school board to table rehiring her Monday, but the board turned down the request.

Ronie Haurin, who is head softball and volleyball coach and also a physical education teacher at C.H. Campbell Elementary School, was hired along with nine other coaches at a special board meeting Tuesday. After the parents made their request, the board went into a closed session to discuss the personnel issue. When they returned, they voted on the hires, including Haurin, without comment.

The parents, who told the board they have been asking district administrators for three months to see accounting records from fundraisers the coach handled, were also to have a meeting Wednesday evening with Rich Archer, the district’s business manager. Archer said he was going to give the group a record of an account that Haurin set up at Farmers Bank for the softball team’s fundraiser money. She became head coach last year, and her records begin in March.

Tom Porter, one of the parents, said they also want to see an accounting of money Haurin raised for the volleyball team from 2002.

Porter said parents in the group, who have not gotten along well with Haurin, were upset in March when she said she no longer wanted to work with a parents’ booster group that was set up to raise money for the softball team. Porter said the booster club always gave parents an accounting of fundraiser money, but Haurin did not. He said that at a meeting in August with school district officials that included the athletic director and the assistant principal at the high school, parents raised concerns about accounting for fundraisers and also about what they believe is bullying and poor treatment of some players by the coach. Since then, he said, in phone calls and emails, the parents have been asking to see accounting records.

Archer said three weeks ago that the group was vague in its requests, and that it was his understanding that the parents wanted an investigation into the fundraising. He said Haurin’s records were reviewed, and he was satisfied that they were in order. He reported that to the parents, he said.

Greg Cooper, the district’s athletic director, told parents that he had met with Haurin in September about the importance of communicating with team support groups and boosters. He also told them he would be “particularly attentive for any inappropriate mistreatment toward any of our players.”

But the parents, who are working with a lawyer, say they want to see detailed accounting records of the fundraisers. The district provided The Vindicator with a printout of an account for Canfield High School Softball that was opened by Haurin at Farmers.