WAUSA – The Wausa Public Schools Board of Education wants to talk with their counterparts at Osmond Community Schools before moving forward with another cooperative agreement between the two rural districts.
The Wausa and Osmond school boards are scheduled to hold a joint special meeting at 7 p.m. July 2 at Wausa. The Wausa school board then will hold its next regular meeting at 8 p.m. July 8 and decide whether to approve cooperative agreements with Osmond for junior high boys and girls basketball for the 2024-25 academic year.
Osmond school officials previously submitted a formal request to Wausa to form a one-year cooperative agreement between the districts for junior high boys and girls basketball for 2024-25.
This request has been made by Osmond due to the fact that school district’s junior high basketball teams will not have adequate numbers to allow Osmond to have junior high squads that can play competitive games or consistently improve skills in practice.
Wausa school board members discussed the junior high basketball cooperative agreements for boys and girls as two separate agenda items on June 10 and then delayed any decisions on them until July 8.
A subcommittee of school board members met with parents of Wausa junior high students during an informational meeting on June 2.
Following that meeting, a survey was sent out to parents of junior high students – regardless of whether they went to the meeting or not – about their interest in this proposed partnership.
“In that meeting, they asked a lot of really great questions and voiced opinions,” Board Vice President Katie Clausen said. “That’s what really prompted us to break it out into the two different discussion items.
“The girls’ parents had different questions and concerns than the boys’ parents did,” she said. “It seemed only pertinent that we make sure that those two groups both felt represented.”
Clausen added there was an overall “constructive conversation” held between board members and parents at that meeting.
Board President Mike Kumm brought up the upcoming joint special meeting Wausa and Osmond school board members will have in July.
“We have the opportunity then to ask directed questions about what the future plans really are,” Kumm said. “With a better sense of direction of what Osmond’s looking for and what we’re looking for in the future, if we find that they’re coming together to a common vision, that can help guide us when it comes to the issue of girls basketball because we know that without help, they won’t be fielding a team on their own.
“They only have three boys who are anticipated to participate, so it’s not going to be as impactful as it would be with the girls’ programs,” he said. “We felt it was a fair consideration to the parents of the girls – who would be impacted by it – if we made a decision based on that sense of where Osmond is looking and where we’re looking and how well our future visions match up.”
He also noted given the fact that there will not be a junior high basketball game played until late December, Wausa school board members could afford to wait before making a decision on the proposed cooperative agreements.
“I don’t think that it’ll be necessarily that detrimental,” Kumm said. “We felt we had a much clearer sense of direction from the boys’ side – through the survey and from communicating with them.”
The Wausa junior high boys were more agreeable to a basketball cooperative with Osmond, according to survey results, than the Wausa junior high girls who were asked the same questions.
“The survey shows more resistance or more apprehension on the part of the girls,” Kumm said.
Clausen agreed, saying the Wausa junior high girls and their parents had more questions about a potential cooperative agreement than the boys’ side had.
Kumm referred back to the upcoming joint special meeting between the Wausa and Osmond school boards in July.
“That sense of where the bigger picture is going, once you resolve that following our joint meeting, a lot of things fall into place following that,” Kumm said. “If you answer question number one, questions two through 10 start to fall in line.”
Board member Pepper West asked Kumm to clarify what he meant by “questions two through 10.”
“Following our joint meeting, we’re going to have a much better idea of what their vision for the future is, what ours is, and we can say it face to face in front of our public,” Kumm said. “We’ll know if we’re on the same page for what the future looks like.
“If we have a common vision, then I guess you would look at maybe further and more coordination sooner,” he said. “If we have a difference of opinion on what the future looks like for the two schools, then we’ll have to address that and see what maybe works for us and adapt our plans going forward.”
Wausa and Osmond already are partnering on wrestling, football and FFA/agriculture starting in 2024-25 for four years.
Kumm reiterated the importance of the upcoming joint special meeting scheduled for the Wausa and Osmond school boards in July.
“Following the July meeting, we’ll all have a better sense of where everybody is, and the public will as well,” Kumm said.
Twelve out of 14 Wausa junior high boys responded to the survey, while 10 out of 11 Wausa junior high girls answered the survey questions.
Multiple attempts were made to reach all parents of Wausa junior high students, including the June 2 meeting itself and following that meeting with phone calls, emails and the survey.
“We had a pretty good turnout at the meeting,” Wausa Superintendent Brad Hoesing said. “Our survey turnout was really good.”
Kumm explained there was a “good-faith effort to ensure we got everybody an opportunity to respond to the survey, but a couple were missed. It wasn’t for lack of effort.”
Hoesing later explained if Wausa school board members tabled any decisions on the junior high basketball cooperative agreements until after the July 2 joint special meeting, they have to be on the July 8 regular meeting agenda.
“You can’t keep tabling it month after month,” Hoesing said.
Clausen noted the significance of having the junior high basketball cooperative agreements as two separate agenda items.
“Now we’re actually giving them more individual consideration, which is I think what our public really, truly is asking for a lot of the time,” Clausen said. “This is always going to be an evolutionary process. It’s not something we do typically.
“When all of us got on this board … I don’t think anybody thought at the time that we were going to have to have lots of consideration on coop agreements and special meetings and things like that,” she said.
“This is going to be an ebb-and-flow evolutionary process.”
She noted the Wausa school board needs to “try to do the best by our patrons, absolutely.”
“Giving them each their own set of considerations is the best thing we can do for them,” Clausen said of the junior high basketball cooperative agreements.
Wausa school board members ultimately tabled any decisions on the junior high basketball cooperative agreements until their July 8 regular meeting.
“I really think the opportunity to make the decision in light of our joint meeting – we’ll be more informed, Osmond will be more informed, the public will be more informed,” Kumm said. “I’d rather make that decision with the most information possible.”
