Lawmakers who represent two northeast Iowa school districts struggling to join a new athletic conference are sponsoring bills to establish a new committee to review conference re-alignment.
The Decorah school district has lost its appeals to state officials and its teams will not be in a conference next year. Representative Michael Bergan of Dorchester represents Decorah in the Iowa House.
“We need a system in place whether it’s us in northeast Iowa or northwest Iowa or other parts of the state that we have an opportunity for good communication and our process right now just does not allow for good discussion,” Bergan said.
The bill calls for a new committee to be formed to evaluate the enrollment in conference schools, traditional rivalries and the compatibility of extracurricular activities among conference members.
“We found out that the process that was developed back in the 1990s just is not working effectively at this point in time, so we’re asking for a conference realignment committee to be established to work with the Boys High School Athletic Association as well as the Girls (High School) Athletic Union for this redevelopment.”
Bergan says this is similar to the process used in Wisconsin. “We’ll have representatives of both superintendents and athletic directors from around the state that will provide input so that if there’s a change both to add to a conference or leave a conference, it will go through a review process and a recommendation by the committee,” Bergan said.
House Speaker Pat Grassley is co-sponsoring the House bill with Bergan. Grassley represents the Waverly-Shell Rock District, which left the Northeast Iowa Conference at the end of the last school year and its bid to join the WaMac Conference was denied. A senate bill on the topic of conference realignment that’s identical to the House bill is co-sponsored by Senators Mike Klemish of Spillville and Sandy Salmon of Janesville.
(By Darin Svenson, KDEC, Decorah; Radio Iowa’s O. Kay Henderson also contributed to this story.)