The lack of a scoreboard operator at a recent game may bring penalties down on the Panther Valley Knee-Hi football team.

Knee-Hi president Jon Williams spoke to the school board at a public meeting Thursday, saying the school district failed to provide a scoreboard operator for a game played on Sunday."It's been known for over two months that the regular clock operator was going to be out of town and that a replacement would be needed," Williams said. "Several people within my organization, including current-approved Panther Valley event staff, offered to be trained several weeks ago so that they could run the clock so we wouldn't have an issue like we did on Sunday.""They were told it wouldn't be necessary, that it's already handled, and that was until 1:30 Friday afternoon when I was notified that the replacement that was going to be required was not going to be there," he said.Williams said his organization resumed using the Panther Valley football stadium in Lansford in 2006."We were always responsible to schedule the scoreboard operator," he said. "This year, for the first time, the school district took on the responsibility, and Sunday was the first time we were without a scoreboard."The incident now places my organization in front of a disciplinary action board and cost us monetary fines imposed by my league," Williams added.Williams said there have been problems in the past."This was not the first issue ... in 2008, the district mandated all groups to pay for security," he stated. "The district requires security, requires their security company, and forces us to pay the bill."We would have appreciated receiving this notice prior to August of that year so we could have budgeted for it. But, although we agreed to disagree with your requirement, we have paid the fees for security ever since."In November, 2009, we were denied use of the field outright because the varsity was expecting to have a home playoff game that week. There was concern that our players were going to destroy the field somehow most of our players don't even have a grass stain on their uniform after they're done, let alone be able to rip up the roots and create a mud situation that would ruin the field. Nonetheless, again we agreed to disagree, and we scheduled our playoff games elsewhere," Williams said."In August 2011, the district took the security fee a step further, and required the Knee-Hi to now pay for custodians staff and event staff. The district changed the use-of-facility policy in late July. Rather than honor our agreement, approved prior to July, the district sent us a bill for $266.70 again. Our four-game total for free use of the stadium now comes to $1,066.80," he said."I'm not here to complain about the fees. The fact is there are real costs to the district, and the security and custodial staff have become a great asset to my organization. What's becoming frustrating is last-minute notifications of things and lack of communication sometimes we can use this, sometimes we can't use this."I'm looking for my organization to survive, and what I need is a commitment from the school district to provide what we request so we can exist and abide by the rules of our league. We need a commitment from the district to provide for the use of the field, the PA system and the scoreboard, five or six times a year. Without this commitment, we'll be required to seek alternative arrangements to ensure our survival," Williams said.Superintendent Rosemary Porembo said that the district did have two people in place to serve as scoreboard operators, but both had family emergencies that did not surface until Friday. She agreed with Williams' suggestion that he have some of his people trained to operate the scoreboard.