The coaching contract of Wenatchee High School freshman football coach Kevin Sellers will not be renewed for the next football season, according to a letter issued by the Wenatchee School District to Sellers at the end of this year’s football season. His teaching contract, which includes AVID and credit retrieval at WHS, is still effective.

Sellers has been on paid administrative leave for his co-curricular contracts since September as the only district employee on board a bus traveling to WHS after a football game Sept. 6 in the Spokane area. That’s when a student, now a 15-year-old, allegedly raped three other students in the back of the bus.

Athletic Director Jim Beeson said this morning a request to advertise for the football position has already been sent to the district’s human resources department. He said some football coaches have expressed an interest to not coach next year, so it’s possible more positions will open up. One assistant coaching position was posted today on the district’s employment website.

The nonrenewal doesn’t affect Sellers’ ability to apply for the position when it becomes available again, his attorney John Brangwin said in an email this morning. Sellers could also apply to coach at another area high school.

According to Brangwin, the former coach holds positions as winter weight room supervisor, assistant track coach, and summer weight room supervisor, too. He is currently on paid administrative leave for those positions. Brangwin said these positions, which are separate contracts, will presumably not be renewed after each season ends.

“I’m not surprised, because nothing’s been resolved,” Brangwin said. “It’s not totally shocking.”

Beeson said football coaching positions are usually advertised as assistant coaches and its then left up to the head coach and staff to determine who will lead each team.

Wenatchee School District hired investigator Kris Cappel of the Seabold Group in Seattle. Her report was issued to district administrators and legal counsel Dec. 17 and was released to The Apple Leaf on Feb. 6. She concluded there was lax and ineffective supervision on the bus that day, but that there was also misunderstanding and miscommunication between the coaches and two different athletic directors.

Beeson took over the department this year, which was previously led by BJ Kuntz for 12 years.

The student suspect was expelled from school and plead not guilty in court Sept. 25. He is currently awaiting a trial scheduled for March 13.

Beeson hopes to have the position filled by the end of the school year, but ideally, he said, it would be filled by mid-April.

“The sooner we can get our staff assembled, the sooner they can start meeting together deciding who’s going to coach what,” he said.