The last piece of the puzzle of whole grade sharing was put into place at a special East Greene school board meeting late Wednesday afternoon.
The result was a 5-0 vote to begin sharing boys high school sports with Jefferson-Scranton beginning with football in the fall. This follows earlier decisions to begin sharing girls high school and middle school sports this summer for softball and boys middle school sports next fall. This series of decisions comes after the two districts signed an agreement last August that would have East Greene and Jefferson-Scranton initially offering their own separate sports programs for two years, 2012-13 and 2013-14, although the students would attend classes together in Jefferson as one high school as per a two-year whole grade sharing arrangement.
Since then, the separate sports plans was reduced to just one year, then to high school sports only, and then to high school boys only.
It was an emotional meeting with many of the members of the boys’ teams and several of their parents on hand. The last East Greene sports teams will be this summer’s high school and middle school baseball teams. EG girls will wrap it up with this year’s track seasons and share softball with Jefferson-Scranton starting next month as members of a shared JS/PC/EG team.
The
East Greene board and administration were unable to come to terms with a very
narrow framework for offering one class in the Grand Junction building each
school day. That had been the criteria laid out by the Iowa Department of
Education to allow East Greene to maintain status as a high school and maintain
a separate high school sports program.
Principal Jon Hueser had outlined the challenges and frustrations of finding an approved class that would pass muster with state education officials at last week’s regular board meeting. He had been in communication with Carol Greta, legal counsel for the Iowa Department of Education, to review various class options.
He read down a list of proposed classes and related emails to and from with Greta that were either rejected or would not work in conjunction with the two districts’ daily academic schedule. The first roadblock was Greta not allowing East Greene an early start at 7:30 a.m. in advance of the first scheduled period. Secondly, she indicated the class must be part of the core curriculum so that eliminated a number of elective classes like life skills and health. Physical education was a possibility, but it would be difficult to get all 75-80 high school students showered and dressed and then onto the buses and over to the classrooms at Jefferson.
Throughout the process, Hueser and Superintendent Mike Harter spoke of needing to work within the established daily schedule in Jefferson at the high school and middle school buildings and the bus schedules set up to get students to the buildings at the start of each school day.
It was clear by the end of the April 11 meeting that the “EG only” class could not be offered, and thus it was most likely boys sports would be conjoined with Jefferson-Scranton sports at the start of next school year.
So it was no surprise when the board announced Monday that a special meeting would be held late Wednesday afternoon with “sports sharing” as one of three agenda items.
Hueser again went down the list of possible classes that had all been rejected, and several board members explained they had personally visited with officials at the Iowa High School Athletic Association in Boone and the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union in West Des Moines. But it was to no avail, no compromise could be reached.
Discussion among the board members and district residents at the meeting revealed that state DOE officials were hearing from other districts who wanted to “whole grade share” with a neighboring district and keep their sports program separate too, as word of the East Greene’s plan spread to other small districts facing declining enrollments and diminished budgets.
One board member made reference to what was becoming the “East Greene rule,” and he expressed belief that the DOE then backed off from earlier indications that East Greene could offer sports separately as it proceeded into whole grade sharing with Jefferson-Scranton. Earlier, the districts agreed to share all non-athletic extracurricular activities which got underway this year in advance of whole grade sharing, as East Greene high school students presently spend a good part of their day in the Jefferson high school building.
The big shift next year comes with all students in middle and high school being there all day. In turn, Jefferson-Scranton will send its fifth and sixth grades to the Grand Junction building, which will also house the lower elementary grades now offered at Rippey—pre-kindergarten up through fourth grade. The Rippey building will close, but use of the gym for JS/EG winter sports in a possibility, most likely for junior varsity or middle school level.
Not yet determined by both boards is whether the sports teams will compete as Greene County or Jefferson-Scranton/East Greene and if any name change to the school would result in a related change to school colors, mascot, team nickname and fight song. No agreement has been reached on further use of Karber Field in Grand Junction for middle or high school sports use. (Jefferson-Scranton currently uses Linduska Field by the high school for middle school, 9th, JV and varsity football).
The ball park (Dutton Field) here will be used this summer for local little league baseball and softball and then becomes part of the East Greene Elementary (Pre K-4)/Greene County Intermediate (5-6) campus when classes begin in August for the 2012-13 school year.
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