Without comment, the Northampton Area School Board by a 9-0 voice vote Monday night accepted the resignations of its boys soccer coaches.

Meanwhile, NASD has hired a nationally recognized sports psychologist to counsel student athletes and their parents or guardians.

"We're going to use this as a teachable moment," NASD Superintendent Joseph Kovalchik told The Press after the Oct. 27 meeting.

"This" refers to an Oct. 9 soccer match when alleged "Ebola" taunts were directed at a Nazareth Area High School Blue Eagles boys soccer team player, a native of Africa, by Northampton Area High School Konkrete Kids boys varsity soccer team players.

Northampton boys head soccer coach Craig Carvin and boys assistant coach Jason Melniszyn submitted resignations Oct. 14 to the NASD administration. They've been NASD soccer coaches for about seven years. The coaches' resignations were the first items on the Oct. 27 agenda to be voted on.

"They turned in their resignations and I turned it over to the board," Kovalchik told The Press.

Dr. Jarrod Spencer, a sports psychologist, has been retained by Kovalchik to speak with NASD fall-winter male and female student athletes during classroom hours Oct. 30.

Spencer will also address parents and guardians of district athletes, 7 p.m. Nov. 11, in the auditorium of Northampton Area High School.

"Whatever school district it is, the school district cannot do it alone. Parents and guardians have to be part of it," Kovalchik told The Press.

Kovalchik said Stephen Seier, Northampton Area High School Principal, is coordinating the programs.

Seier and Todd Bowser, NASD athletic director, attended the Oct. 27 school board meeting, but neither spoke to the board or the media.

Kovalchik said that, while NASD has had programs in place, Spencer would address leadership, communication skills, diversity and sportsmanship.

"Then we're going to roll this out during the course of the year," Kovalchik said to The Press.

Kovalchik said Spencer would hold a similar seminar for NASD spring sports student athletes.

"I don't want it to be a one-year program," Kovalchik told The Press. "We really want to embed this into the curriculum."

According to Spencer's website, mindoftheathlete.com, Spencer is president and founder of Mind of the Athlete, LLC, a sports psychology company "committed to improving the emotional health of athletes."

Spencer created the "Mind of the Athlete Program," a video and audio sports psychology curriculum composed of 16 videos, accompanying worksheets and 10 CDs used worldwide in countries such as South Africa, Ireland and South Korea. He is author of the book, "The Sky is Not the Limit: Discovering the True North for Your Life's Path."

Spencer works with professional, Olympic, college and high school athletes, coaches and teams in the United States. In addition to serving as the sports psychologist for athletic teams at such schools as University of Maryland, Old Dominion University, Lehigh University and Lafayette College, Spencer works individually with athletes from University of Michigan, University of North Carolina, Ohio State, Cal Poly and Princeton University.

Spencer was an all-state high school wrestler who captained his team to back-to-back New Jersey state championships. He was a record-setting tailback for the Lafayette College football team. While in graduate school at West Chester University, he played wing on the rugby team.

Spencer is a licensed psychologist in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia. Spencer, his wife and three children are NASD residents.

Kovalchik did not have an estimate of the cost for Spencer's programs to the district. He said Spencer's compensation would be taken from the 2014-15 NASD general fund budget.

Kovakchik reiterated after Monday night's school board meeting that the administration completed its investigation of the alleged taunts.

Kovalchik would not disclose the number of soccer team athletes involved, nor if the students were disciplined, nor what the nature of that discipline might be, citing administration-student confidentiality.

Kovalchik said the matter of the alleged soccer player Ebola taunts has required many hours of his work time during the past two weeks.

The alleged incident drew national attention with Kovalchik fielding reporters' inquiries from ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, The Associated Press, The New York Daily News and The Wall Street Journal, among other media outlets.

During the Oct. 9 Northampton-Nazareth boys soccer game, Ibraham Tounkara, a Nazareth Blue Eagles boys soccer team player from West Africa, was allegedly taunted with references to Ebola and his race by Northampton Konkrete Kids boys soccer team players.

Tounkara was ejected from the game after he got into an altercation with the Northampton team.

The Northampton soccer game with Nazareth was the Konkrete Kids' last game of the season in the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference. The Konkrete Kids won 2-1.

Tounkara has lived for three years with the family of Fountain Hill Police Chief Edward Bachert. Tounkara's family lives in Guinea, said to be the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa nations.

Last year, a black student from Liberia played on the Northampton boys soccer team. This year, the student was the Northampton boys soccer team manager.

Two years ago, the boy's cousin was a player on the Konkrete Kids boys soccer team. For one year, the cousins played together on the Northampton boys soccer team.