Pleasant Valley Youth Association (PVYA) scored a victory at Thursday night's Pleasant Valley School Board. Eight directors voted "yes" to establishing a Boys and Girls Lacrosse program, with director Susan Kresge voting the only "No."

The program will be instituted for the 2014-2015 school year beginning with a Junior Varsity team in both boys and girls with two coaches for each. Then in year 2015-2016 and beyond there will be a boys' and girls' Varsity and Junior Varsity team with three coaches for each team.Kresge read a statement explaining the reasons why she voted no."I feel it is not the right time to be adding these two athletic programs. Our enrollment is now below 5,000 students and if you take our incoming kindergarten numbers, which have been around 300 for the past couple of years. Multiple that by 13 and our enrollment once the higher classes graduate will be around 3,900 students."Citing the PV decision to join the Lehigh Valley Conference in 2014-2015, along with five other Mountain Valley Conference Schools, she believes that with entering the new conference and the declining enrollment, "we need to focus on our established athletic programs to help them be successful."She further stated that the Board of Education and administration have been successful in containing costs and not furloughing staff for the past few years and despite a severe reduction in state funding have not raised taxes for the last two years."At this time I cannot approve the addition of these two athletic programs, which will become a new yearly ongoing budget expense of at least $60,000...Right now nine of the 12 Lehigh Valley Conference teams have lacrosse and none of the Mountain Valley Conference schools do. I would have liked for us to have waited a few years and then re-evaluated the addition of lacrosse."Hope Smith, president of PVYA addressed the board after the vote and said, "Mrs. Kresge, we respect your opinion. We do take the taxpayers' money very seriously. Some of the monies to get the program started will be provided by PVYA."After the meeting, Smith said that the PVYA's board of directors were very proud of the lacrosse commission for the excellent job they have done the last seven years, when the program was started.Toni Bush, PVYA's Girls' Lacrosse commissioner and the Youth 15 (girls ages 13-14) coach was emotional and ecstatic in expressing to the board how much the program appreciated their vote."I give you the most sincere appreciation and thanks for taking this chance on us. We won't let you down. Our work at the youth level, in developing fine athletes for high school will continue. Your vote of approval has demonstrated your commitment to generating an environment that embraces new and exciting opportunities for our children."She added that the board gave them a gift and they had one for the board as well. PVYA secured a set of 36 lacrosse sticks from US Lacrosse, the national governing body of lacrosse, for physical education classes and an entire educator's guide for teaching a unit on the sport."We hope the district can find a use for the equipment in gym classes as we are sure the students will thoroughly enjoy learning more about lacrosse," said Bush.Board member Dan Wunder said the vote for the lacrosse team was a vote for kids. As a former teacher, retired Pleasant Valley Elementary School principal, and former girls' track coach for many years."In 1978, I had about 16 girls come to me with their hopes to start a girls' track team at PV. Through their determination, they started a petition. Then that summer, we took them to several track meets throughout the Slate Belt and won a bunch of medals. These girls became the first PVHS Girls' track team and they won the Centennial League meet in 1979 and went on to become one of the most successful track programs for several years. Tonight, when I looked out there in the audience at those girls, I saw the same thing I saw in my girls 36 years ago. That's why my vote is for the kids," said Wunder.Russ Gould, board president agreed with Wunder when he said, "It's all about the kids. They're passionate about it. Yes, I know tax money will be spent, but it is being spent on our kids and I believe it will have a positive effect on them and the community."