The A-C Valley, Keystone and Union School Districts administrations proposed a number of sports cooperatives to their respective boards but those proposed agreements came to a quick end Monday night (Nov. 20).
The four sports in question were varsity/junior varsity football, Junior High football, varsity/junior varsity baseball and junior high baseball.
The A-C Valley board voted against Junior High football, and both varsity/JV and Junior High baseball by an 0-8-1 margin with board member Eric Sundling abstaining from the vote. Board member Jeffrey Powell was the lone yes vote in the vote for varsity/JV football. Sundling also abstained from the varsity/JV football vote.
When the districts originally proposed the co-ops, sports such as soccer, cross country, softball and track and field were in discussion to be part of the co-op but those sports were removed from the proposal.
According to Union Superintendent Dr. John Kimmell, who responded via email, there were originally 22 different teams up for consideration of entering into co-ops but the Keystone Athletic Committee decided at its meeting to only pursue the four co-ops voted on by the three school boards.
“I actually put a request out on Facebook to ask people out in my area to see how they thought and I had quite a few respond,” Terwilliger said. “There were some in favor but the [majority of responses I received] were against.”
Terwilliger said she also consulted the online survey the A-C Valley administration put out to its residents about the proposed co-ops.
Additionally, Terwilliger felt there was no need to alter the current co-op agreements at this time.
“At this point, the co-op is working very well with A-C Valley and Union and I think we need to keep that,” Terwilliger said.
The vote by the Union school board was much closer than the A-C Valley vote with the varsity/JV football co-op being voted down by one vote while the vote for Junior High football vote had three in favor and six against. Both baseball co-op proposals were voted down by a 2-7 margin.
At the Keystone meeting, both Junior High football and baseball were voted down by a unanimous 0-8 vote while varsity/JV football was voted down by a 2-6 margin. The varsity/JV baseball vote ended in a 4-4 deadlock but couldn’t be passed because there wasn’t a majority.