100%.
Hell, the leadership in Gladbrook would rather dissolve the district than help to pay for upgrades to the high school in Reinbeck and I'm guessing there are several other districts like that around the state.
Iowa High School BEDS count 24-25
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Hell, the leadership in Gladbrook would rather dissolve the district than help to pay for upgrades to the high school in Reinbeck and I'm guessing there are several other districts like that around the state.
I know you're trying to make a point, but if the conference is worth anything, that game is on a Friday night.
Not for other sports like basketball and track, if VB joined the SCC they would be making that trek all the time.
Harmony went through it and its what killed the district, they had the MS in one town, the elementary in another and the HS out in the country. The Supt wanted to close the MS and elem. and build a new building out at the HS location for everyone. The two towns that were going to lose their building refused. So the bond issue that passed rebuilt the MS, which the district closed within a couple of years, and added a new wing to the elementary, which now sits empty when the district merged with VB. It was what killed the district, if they had moved it all out to the HS, the district might have survived, but between open enrollment and money spent busing kid over half the county they ended up broke.
When possible, but you are still going to have to be making that trip for other sports and not every one will be on a Friday night. Wrestling, VB and track will mostly be on a week night other than Friday. The conference could try to minimize it but could not eliminate it for either VB or Clark.
If VB joined the SCC the closest games would be Cardinal or Davis Co, both 25 miles away, every other school would be an hour or more at least, that is for the close schools like Centerville and Albia. Knoxville, Chariton and Clark are going to be 100 to 125 mile road trips.
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You ever drive to a junior high football game to Highland from Milton? Clarke wouldn’t be much farther.
I'm not sure if it is wasting time since they are already determining districts for football. Whether it's applying the same criteria, or modifying it much, it seems pretty straightforward.
While this is not an important factor really, seeding and hosting are dependent on results, and that keeps getting harder when you have all these frankenstein conferences that cross over three classes.
Whether it's the associations or someone else, right now we have a bunch of conferences in the state that need a reset. Enrollments, consolidations and closures have changed so much that now we have conferences that suck both in terms of travel and school size. While school size doesn't guarantee competitiveness, it's a pretty good correlator that the associations obviously do concern themselves with.
I don't expect them to care who wins conference titles. I do expect them to care that you have some terrible competitive balance (in at least some large part due to enrollment variances) and travel for a lot of conferences. That leads to a worse experience (or reduction in participation) for HS student athletes, which speaks to their entire purpose.
There's no way to make it perfect, or maybe even great, particularly in the rural areas. But it could be a hell of a lot better both in terms of getting a better match in school size and travel. But the only way to do it would be to blow it up and start over. Instead it's a bunch of incremental moves from conferences that made sense a long time ago, and no longer do.
100%. I really hope they apply and join, particularly if/when Waterloo East goes away.
As an Ames person, I think Urbandale is the ideal school to be a natural rival. There are a handful of these large central Iowa Schools like Ames and Urbandale. Really difficult to compete in the CIML in most sports, but also don’t get enough competitive games in the Alliance.
I'm hoping the new Waterloo combined High School chooses The Alliance but there are far too many egos from the West camp that are not going to allow them to leave the Mississippi Valley.
No but I have rode the team bus from Keo up to Highland for games, and its a much easier drive once you get to Fairfield, because its 4 lane road all the way. Keo to Clark is nothing but 2 lane roads the entire way, except for the 4 miles you are on 163 north of Cardinal till you get off on 63, which means you have to go through Ottumwa. Milton to Highland you go around both Fairfield and Mt. Pleasant, making it an easier trip. According to Google maps, Milton to Riverside, which you are getting off 218 before Riverside is 91.5 miles, Keo to Clark is 114 miles, on two lane roads, so 23 miles further.
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I still feel like Indianola, Norwalk, DCG, Urbandale and Ames will end up in the same league with 3 additional schools TBD. and if Bondurant, North Polk and Gilbert where just a bit further a long in their growth, it would be a perfect conference.
Maybe by the time Ankeny and Waukee complete a 3rd high school, there will be some more shuffling to figure out.
District my wife teaches for had the middle school in a different town. They could bond and the savings they could have from less admin, less custodian staff, less lunch staff, utilities, buses, etc would more than pay for a new middle school attached to the rest. They won’t do it because most of the school board is from the small town that has the middle school in it. They say it would kill (it’s already dead) their town if it closed. Why is it the big town’s responsibility to spend extra tax dollars to have the small town hold maybe one extra business in town?
Wow. Tim Dwight was another one who ran that year. I remember jeff being every good as Tim.
When you are worrying that closing a school in a community is going to kill the community, I hate to say it but the community is already dead. The only way to make county wide district work is to put everything in the center of the county, that is why it works in Davis Co, and not in others. Davis Co was actually the pilot program for the state for county wide districts, after they did it, the state lost interest and it was decades before others were forced to do the same.
Ames and Urbandale are in a tough spot. Not really a great fit in the Alliance and not able to keep up with the CIML schools.
Ankeny's third high school is slated to be an "innovation hub." If I understand the model correctly, it won't function as a third HS with its own feeder system like Ankeny Centennial HS and Ankeny HS, but more of a career/exploratory type building where students from the other two high schools can go. I don't know for sure but I would imagine it would not have its own athletic program.
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.
