KINGSTON — When the Buccaneers descend upon Kingston High School in September 2007 — the creation of their school culture will begin. The question of the hour is: How will athletics factor in?

Tuesday night, a full house of parents, student athletes, coaches and community members met at Kingston Junior High to discuss possibilities and concerns, as the North Kitsap School District’s Athletics and Activities Committee announced its preliminary recommendations for KHS in 2007-2008.

“For the expenditures and the time and the effort that we’ve done for this school, I would really like to see it start Year One as a true school,” said Dave Hord, a parent of a Kingston student athlete, noting his hopes of opening the 9-12 high school with a full roster of varsity, JV and C-team options.

The community meeting primarily focused on whether or not varsity sports would be offered at KHS and the new school’s ability to handle such a myriad of programs.

The AAC’s draft recommendation echoed Hord’s perspective as it outlined independent varsity and JV teams for almost every sport at KHS — Buccaneer gymnasts and swimmers would participate on combined teams with NKHS due to limited practice areas in North Kitsap.

“We wanted to offer as much as we could, and work out the details later,” AAC committee member and NKHS athletic director Trish Olson said of the committee’s reasoning

Kingston High School is, as of now, “a little facilities challenged,” she said, and the AAC has been working with “a limited budget, getting smaller by the day.”

A major concern among the soccer and baseball team representatives in attendance was field lighting, which is not included in the KHS budget.

The school will have a synthetic turfed football/soccer field — which, preliminarily, will host soccer games. While football games will be held at North Kitsap High School stadium, without lights at KHS, the turf’s benefits will not be fully realized, sports fans argued.

Because Washington Interscholastic Athletics Association law dictates high school sporting events cannot begin before 3:30 p.m., fitting fall JV and varsity contests in before dark will be nearly impossible, NKHS JV girls soccer coach Nicole Funk said.

“Are they (the school board members) really factoring this in that (some of) your sports aren’t going to be able to compete with two teams?” Funk asked.

Beyond the issues of space and dollar availability, Tuesday’s community audience focused heavily on whether or not Kingston should even offer varsity, JV and C-team sports in the school’s first year.

“I think that’s the biggest mistake that you have in your recommendation proposal,” said NKHS teacher and coach Jeff Weible, voicing his concerns about offering varsity level in the first year.

Weible, who told the tale of his bad experience as head football coach in Klahowya Secondary School’s opening year, added, “I saw nothing but negative things come from that.”

During that year, Weible said all of Klahowya’s competitive teams accrued just one win on the entire year, competing at the varsity level without a senior class.

Typically, when districts open new high schools, they lack a senior class. As such, Kingston’s situation is unique in that it will start with a senior class due to space constrictions at North Kitsap High School — which will be under renovation during KHS’ initial year.

That situation will impact both schools as KHS will open with 819 students (9-12) in the 2A/3A Olympic league. NKHS will house 1,183 students (9-12), while remaining in the 4A Narrows League. The enrollment range — based on 10th-12th grade numbers — for WIAA’s 2A classification is 468-918 students, 3A is 919-1,280.

“That’s where my concern is,” said Norma Hamblet, parent of a multi-sport student-athlete. “The numbers you have given me would put us at 2A, but we’d be putting our young men to compete with 4A sized schools. I’m concerned about injuries, size, morale — the whole thing.”

“I think we should have varsity sports (combined) at North,” junior student athlete Stephanie Eadie said of her thoughts for KHS’ first year. “I don’t think the numbers are there in Kingston, and because you are already splitting us up between the high schools, it would be nice to be able to play together.”

The AAC intends to make its final recommendation to the NKSD board of directors at the first school board meeting in January 2007. The board will likely make its final decision before the end of February.