Ryan Wood, Beverly Public Schools’ athletic director, updated the Finance & Facilities committee April 30 on participation, coaches’ stipends and program trends across fall, winter and spring seasons.

Wood described a recent effort to standardize coaching stipends by tiering sports into levels (Tier 1–4) so stipends are more uniform across the district. He said the stipend structure was reviewed against other districts and intended to equalize compensation by sport and by program size.

On participation data, Wood told members the district had very low participation in swim this year — “our swimming, where we have 5 students” — and said the team co‑operated with Gloucester High School this season so Beverly swimmers could join that program and access pool time at the Gloucester YMCA and Gordon College. He said low swim participation partly stems from club programs that schedule their seasons concurrent with the high school season, which reduces available athletes.

Committee members asked whether a waiver could allow eighth graders to compete for the high school. Wood said district leaders had used an eighth‑grade waiver previously and that waivers are filed on a per‑sport basis; he said a waiver for swim could be filed if there is interest.

Wood also described how larger programs (football, for example) typically receive assistant coach allocations based on registration and program size; he said football currently has about eight total coaches and boys lacrosse had a head coach, assistant coach and two volunteers this season.

Members and staff discussed outreach to middle school and homeschool families, coordination with youth and club programs so school teams do not “cannibalize” feeder programs, and continuing to use co‑op arrangements to sustain programs with few participants. Wood said co‑ops and waivers are tools the department uses to keep teams viable when local registration is low.

No formal vote was taken on participation or staffing at the meeting; the athletic department will continue outreach, consider waivers as appropriate and use coop arrangements to sustain low‑participation sports.