By Chris Chaney
Sun staff

With the new West Clermont High School scheduled to open its doors in just over two years, the school’s athletic teams will have already had a home reserved in the Eastern Cincinnati Conference, ECC Commissioner Ray Spicher announced earlier this month.

“The West Clermont School District issued a letter of resignation for Glen Este (in accordance with) our bylaws,” Spicher explained. “(The school) has to do that within a two-year time period of their exit date.

“At the same time, (West Clermont) issued a letter of request for the new school to become a member. Our athletic directors serve as our expansion committee. They discussed it and voted to accept the withdraw (of Glen Este) and admittance (of West Clermont) in the same meeting.”

According to the ECC Constitution, a failure by Glen Este to have submitted its written letter of withdrawal would have resulted in “exclusion from conference/division championships, all-league teams and a monetary penalty not to exceed three times the current annual league dues.”

The acceptance of Glen Este’s withdrawal and the admittance of West Clermont needed at least ¾ of the member schools to vote to do so.

The ECC Board of Control voted in favor of both at its April 15 meeting.

Given the merger of the West Clermont School District’s two high schools — Glen Este and Amelia — the ECC’s gain will be the Southern Buckeye Conference’s loss as the Barons leave the SBC after competing in the league since 2010.

The SBC has sought to expand to account for Amelia’s eventual withdrawal, which they have already alerted the conference of, according to President of the Executive Council Matt Earley.

Earley said that their preliminary search for a replacement school has come up empty and as a result, the conference will extend its deadline for a request to be decided upon at its May meeting.

Earley added that the league had received word from a school interested in joining in the recent past, but there was no request sent during their expansion search.

While the SBC looks to replace Amelia, the ECC is excited at the prospect of bringing together two well-respected institutions to bolster an already successful conference.

“(West Clermont) is going to be a big school and they will have a very comprehensive athletic and academic program that is very attractive to our conference,” Spicher said. “Our schools tend to be very competitive athletic and academic schools, geographically well located and we have a history of working with their school community beings that Glen Este still is a member of our conference — that’s been a very positive relationship.

“We’re looking forward to continuing to make improvements on the Eastern Cincinnati Conference and make it the best conference it can be.”

Still in the offing at WCHS are the decisions to be made about coaching and staffing.

“Once the building design process is well under way, we will begin looking at staffing issues for the future,” West Clermont Superintendent Dr. Keith Kline said in January. “The actual merger will not take place for 2 ½ years. We will design an internal process that will guide us with the placement of both academic teachers and coaches so that those decisions are made prior to the end of the 2016-17 school year. That way, we will be ready to open in the fall of 2017.

“I believe this merger will provide additional opportunities for our students. We should be able to field teams in sports we have not had enough interest in currently, expand the levels of teams in some sports to include more of our younger students and look at sports that we currently do not have.”

For more information on West Clermont High School and everything taking place in the district, log on to westcler.org.