Iowa High School BEDS count 24-25

[mramseyISU]

It's much easier to do in basketball than football, purely from needing a bigger roster in football. Waterloo West and DSM East are basically identical with enrollment and East has struggled with the same thing since basically forever. It's hard to compete when you can't get kids to show up to practice, or stay eligible.

There's a big socio-economic factor at play here with schools like that. Waterloo West and Cedar Falls for example are within like 40 kids for the BEDS number but couldn't be further apart in results. That socio-economic factor they're supposedly using for classification in my opinion didn't go far enough to help level the playing field for schools like that. It's not going to be much if any better in 4 years if they end up with the combined school. You're not going to take a football team that's 4-5 ever year and combine them with a team 3-6 team and magically turn them into a winning team.

 

[1SEIACLONE]

The state needed to move away from BEDS count to determine class size of schools and just have the schools figure out how many kids they actually have out for the sport over the last 5/6 seasons, and then use that number to class the schools. In 8 man you see lots of schools with 35 players out playing teams with 15 kids out for the sport. In the large schools you have WDM Valley with over a hundred in the program were playing the metro schools with 30/40 kids out for football.
The schools know how many kids they have been getting out, the roster is there for everyone to see, use that number to determine the classes.

 

[TrailCy]

There's a big socio-economic factor at play here with schools like that. Waterloo West and Cedar Falls for example are within like 40 kids for the BEDS number but couldn't be further apart in results. That socio-economic factor they're supposedly using for classification in my opinion didn't go far enough to help level the playing field for schools like that. It's not going to be much if any better in 4 years if they end up with the combined school. You're not going to take a football team that's 4-5 ever year and combine them with a team 3-6 team and magically turn them into a winning team.

NFL rosters are made up of many black players who grew up extremely poor. How can football success be dependent on high socioeconomic status yet the vast majority of great players don't fit that mold. Where are those players in Iowa? Serious question.

 

[BCClone]

I think it's a little bit of a few things. Culture is a big thing here, outside of girls basketball and bowling it's hard to recruit a coach even to apply. Case in point baseball hasn't had a coach last more than a couple years and was looking for a head coach 2 years ago, had two guys apply. I know both of them and like them both but neither one of them had any business being a head varsity baseball coach. The AD ended up taking the team over on a supposedly interim basis. We're 2 years into him as the interim coach. There are good players in the program, had an all state catcher (who took the starting job as an 8th grader) and a couple D3 kids on the team who all graduated this year. I think a couple kids the year before ended up playing D3 as well but in those 2 years we've won 15 games. Granted the MVC in brutal in baseball at the top but they should accidentally win more than 1 game in the conference with sending 2 or 3 guys on to the next level every year.

Wrestling forfeited 4-5 weights at every meet this year, similar story as baseball, can't keep a coach to save their life. Swimming for the boys anyway had 12 kids out last year and that's for a team combined with 4 schools.

D3 players are basically HS starters that had a checkbook or loan ability big enough to pay their college costs and wanted to continue playing.

 

[1SEIACLONE]

D3 players are basically HS starters that had a checkbook or loan ability big enough to pay their college costs and wanted to continue playing.

There are some talented players at this level, but many are missing something that would get them on a P4 roster, too small, just not quick enough, but they have talent. Most are like you say, kids that were good hs players and just want to continue playing the sport.

 

[AuH2O]

NFL rosters are made up of many black players who grew up extremely poor. How can football success be dependent on high socioeconomic status yet the vast majority of great players don't fit that mold. Where are those players in Iowa? Serious question.

Being an individual player that has enough talent to progress as a player is a completely different thing than having 11 guys on the field execute.

You can have talent and athletes, but if those kids aren't at practice consistently and don't or can't do offseason stuff, your team is going to suck. It doesn't matter what kind of athletes you have.

A guy I knew was a coach at one of the DMPS schools years ago. Getting kids out was hard in itself, and having kids consistently show up to school and practice was a challenge. a bunch had to watch younger siblings because they had no child care while a parent (often the only parent in the house) had to work. Or kids would quit to get jobs.

So of course the team isn't good, which discourages kids from going out, and the cycle continues.

People can talk about "building culture" and it's hard but can be done. I don't think so. When you have a majority of your students living in poverty and all that comes with that, there's nothing a coach is going to do to be able to consistently compete at least at the 4-5A level.

Not to mention, now a lot of the best athletes in these schools open enroll because it's easy to do.

 

[AuH2O]

The state needed to move away from BEDS count to determine class size of schools and just have the schools figure out how many kids they actually have out for the sport over the last 5/6 seasons, and then use that number to class the schools. In 8 man you see lots of schools with 35 players out playing teams with 15 kids out for the sport. In the large schools you have WDM Valley with over a hundred in the program were playing the metro schools with 30/40 kids out for football.
The schools know how many kids they have been getting out, the roster is there for everyone to see, use that number to determine the classes.

I don't like that idea. I don't want any HS sport to have motivation to cut or weed kids out. School size x some factors based on private/public and socioeconomics is probably the only way to do it without massive unintended consequences.

I also think the focus should be on trying to ensure some competitive games for student-athletes throughout the year, and not try to achieve the pipe dream of competitive balance across a class of sports.

As an example, the Des Moines publics are never going to compete at a high level again with any consistency in football and other sports. It's just not happening. But between those schools and throw in Marshalltown, maybe Ottumwa, for example, and at least you have several teams that can play each other and be reasonably competitive in a lot of the sports throughout a season. So they go get hammered in a playoff game against SEP. At least they might've had 5-6 competitive games against rival schools.

Trying to create a situation where all schools have a legitimate shot at winning playoff games is a fool's errand.

 

[1SEIACLONE]

I don't like that idea. I don't want any HS sport to have motivation to cut or weed kids out. School size x some factors based on private/public and socioeconomics is probably the only way to do it without massive unintended consequences.

I also think the focus should be on trying to ensure some competitive games for student-athletes throughout the year, and not try to achieve the pipe dream of competitive balance across a class of sports.

As an example, the Des Moines publics are never going to compete at a high level again with any consistency in football and other sports. It's just not happening. But between those schools and throw in Marshalltown, maybe Ottumwa, for example, and at least you have several teams that can play each other and be reasonably competitive in a lot of the sports throughout a season. So they go get hammered in a playoff game against SEP. At least they might've had 5-6 competitive games against rival schools.

Trying to create a situation where all schools have a legitimate shot at winning playoff games is a fool's errand.

Few if any schools are going to weed out kids to drop down a class, having too many out for a sport is only a problem for a handful of schools and they are going to be in the largest class anyway. The DM public schools struggle to compete even with the small large class teams like Ottumwa, the only one that could get a win were East or Lincoln every now and then. I would guess most of the DM teams would struggle playing in a 3A/2A district, they just do not have the kids out to compete and most likely never will.
Using BEDS number is just a horrible way to class schools, because it does not take into account not only social/economic factors but the make up of the class by sex. You get into the smaller schools you have classes of 50 kids with 15 boys and 35 girls in the class, but using BEDS the number is 50 for that school which does not give you the entire picture of the size of the team.

 

[Gunnerclone]

I saw on the news last week that Waukee is thinking about purchasing land for a 3rd HS down the road. The Supt. was on KCCI saying the land should be purchased now because its only going to get more expensive and they think within 10 years they will be building a 3rd HS.

They bought that piece. 110 acres near the Grand Prairie exit.

 

[mramseyISU]

NFL rosters are made up of many black players who grew up extremely poor. How can football success be dependent on high socioeconomic status yet the vast majority of great players don't fit that mold. Where are those players in Iowa? Serious question.

Success, regardless of the endeavor gets a serious leg up with a support system at home. If the only criteria were a bunch of poor black kids then Des Moines North or Waterloo East wouldn't lose a game. Most of those poor underprivileged kids that make it to D1 or the pros talk about somebody in their family they could lean on when things got hard.

Few if any schools are going to weed out kids to drop down a class, having too many out for a sport is only a problem for a handful of schools and they are going to be in the largest class anyway. The DM public schools struggle to compete even with the small large class teams like Ottumwa, the only one that could get a win were East or Lincoln every now and then. I would guess most of the DM teams would struggle playing in a 3A/2A district, they just do not have the kids out to compete and most likely never will.
Using BEDS number is just a horrible way to class schools, because it does not take into account not only social/economic factors but the make up of the class by sex. You get into the smaller schools you have classes of 50 kids with 15 boys and 35 girls in the class, but using BEDS the number is 50 for that school which does not give you the entire picture of the size of the team.

I've said for years high school (especially football) should be using a relegation/promotion system like they do in European soccer. It'd be messy the first few years but eventually things would settle out to where kids at least have a shot at winning. They're already redoing the Districts in Football every other year so why not take the top 4 teams and move them up a class and the bottom 4 drop them down? Seriously what good does it do for kids on a team like DSM East that have won a single game in 2 years to get pounded every week? There's probably 4 other teams in every class with a similar situation that getting dropped down a class would give them a chance to be at least competitive and not getting embarrassed every single week. I think for those kids in underprivileged schools if you tell them they have a shot at winning every week you'd get a lot more to show up to practice and put in the work in the classroom to stay eligible.

 

[1UNI2ISU]

Waterloo East/Des Moines North/Davenport Central wouldn't win a single 1A district anywhere in the state.

 

[1SEIACLONE]

Success, regardless of the endeavor gets a serious leg up with a support system at home. If the only criteria were a bunch of poor black kids then Des Moines North or Waterloo East wouldn't lose a game. Most of those poor underprivileged kids that make it to D1 or the pros talk about somebody in their family they could lean on when things got hard.


I've said for years high school (especially football) should be using a relegation/promotion system like they do in European soccer. It'd be messy the first few years but eventually things would settle out to where kids at least have a shot at winning. They're already redoing the Districts in Football every other year so why not take the top 4 teams and move them up a class and the bottom 4 drop them down? Seriously what good does it do for kids on a team like DSM East that have won a single game in 2 years to get pounded every week? There's probably 4 other teams in every class with a similar situation that getting dropped down a class would give them a chance to be at least competitive and not getting embarrassed every single week. I think for those kids in underprivileged schools if you tell them they have a shot at winning every week you'd get a lot more to show up to practice and put in the work in the classroom to stay eligible.

The state really could care less about the teams that struggle to win games each year, as long as they can field and team the entire season and do not have to cancel games because of lack of kids they could care less who is winning and win is not. Dropping the bottom teams down every two years and bringing up the top teams would be a great way to help those teams at the bottom, not sure what it would do to the top teams. Putting the 3A champion in 4A might be doing them more harm than good if they continued to win enough games each year to stay there and not cycle back down, but its an interesting idea.

 

[Messi]

Urbandale school board continues discussion on leaving CIML

Urbandale currently plays in the Central Iowa Metropolitan League, which includes other larger suburban schools.

www.kcci.com

 

[clones_jer]

watched Hoover play a couple weeks ago ... woof.

1,000+ kids in the school and a football team that is a mess and the halftime band had 16 kids (we counted). The one band member you could hear was a trumpet performing in his FB pads and uniform lol - he's the one diamond in the rough for both FB & band apparently.

 

[theshadow]

Boone declined Heart of Iowa invite, decided to stay in Raccoon River Conference.

 

[theshadow]

All 5 Lakes Conference schools (the 3 leaving and the 2 remaining) have been told "no, thanks" by the Siouxland Conference. Separately, Western Christian is now on about a 15-year streak of getting a "no" from the Siouxland.

 

[Kinch]

watched Hoover play a couple weeks ago ... woof.

1,000+ kids in the school and a football team that is a mess and the halftime band had 16 kids (we counted). The one band member you could hear was a trumpet performing in his FB pads and uniform lol - he's the one diamond in the rough for both FB & band apparently.

One CIML girls basketball coach said on Facebook numbers were way down for several teams. Didn’t give any breakdown, but did mention there were large school teams with 10 or 12 students out for the 9 to 12 program. Again don’t know how true that will be for CIML but I’ve talked to a small school coach who said he knew of programs that were way down

 

[1UNI2ISU]

I guess we'd be hitting the age for kids that would have been in middle school during the pandemic when club and school sports were shut down for a year. Guessing lots of kids realized they didn't miss it...

 

[exCYtable]

One CIML girls basketball coach said on Facebook numbers were way down for several teams. Didn’t give any breakdown, but did mention there were large school teams with 10 or 12 students out for the 9 to 12 program. Again don’t know how true that will be for CIML but I’ve talked to a small school coach who said he knew of programs that were way down

I've heard this is happening even at schools you wouldn't think it would ever happen at. Schools with powerhouse traditional programs that are struggling to find players. Why is that?

 

[1SEIACLONE]

The public metro schools and the smaller rural schools just do not have the numbers there to keep programs alive at many of them. Throw in how they classify the teams, and a lot of schools have little to no chance to improve. Hell the DM metro schools would struggle playing in a good 2A to 1A conference.