WAUSA Wausa Public Schools is not going to enter a basketball cooperative agreement with Osmond Community Schools.
While no official vote was taken, members of the Wausa board of educa - tion agreed on Feb. 12 that the school district will not be co-oping with Osmond in basketball for the 2024-25 and 2025-26 academic years.
Osmond had requested that Wausa consider a basketball cooperative agreement between the two school districts, both in high school, as well as for junior high boys and girls.
Wausa Superintendent Brad Hoesing sent a letter on Feb. 16 to Osmond Superintendent Skip Bremer about what the Wausa school board discussed recently on the possibility of co-oping in basketball in the future.
"As far as basketball was concerned, the board discussed the potential for a cooperative agreement in basketball between the two districts," Hoesing wrote. "Wausa understands and sym - pathizes with Osmond's immediate need in boys basketball." However, Hoesing noted Wausa school board members, through discus- sion, know that at this time they cannot accommodate a co-op in basketball for the upcoming cycle, and do not want to wait until April to drag that timeline out, vote no and put Osmond as a school district in an even tougher situation.
"We understand that time is of the essence, and we would like to give you an opportunity to look elsewhere in order to get an opportunity for your kids, if possible," Hoesing wrote.
Osmond has been looking to partner with another school district in basket - ball for at least the next two years since the Randolph school board recently voted 6-0 to terminate its basketball cooperative agreement with Osmond. That led the Osmond school board to request a meeting with the Wausa school board on consideration of a basketball cooperative agreement, but that is not going to happen.
Bremer noted Osmond had wanted to meet with Wausa first due to the fact the two school districts already are planning on co-oping in agriculture/ FFA, football and wrestling starting in the 2024-25 academic year.
"We're trying to figure out how we can do this long-term partnership," Bremer said. "Obviously, we wanted to be able to visit with Wausa first to see what the interest was." As part of their discussion about potentially partnering with Osmond in basketball, Wausa school board members wondered why the subject was not brought up during initial talks this past fall about a cooperative agree - ment between the two school districts.
"Basically, we were focusing just on football," Bremer said. "Our board likes to talk about the co-ops after a sports season, if possible. The football deadline was the one that was crunch time." Including basketball as part of the initial discussions about a cooperative agreement "would have been a lot probably to throw at the community of Wausa maybe," he said.
Osmond school officials decided to wait until the 2023-24 basketball season was almost over before looking to next year because they did not want their discussions to distract from or get in the way of what is currently going on with their boys' and girls' teams.
Bremer acknowledged Osmond will have to look elsewhere for a potential partner in basketball for next year.
"Wausa decided exploring a basket - ball co-op at this time isn't feasible," Bremer said. "We will continue to explore all possible options for our students." He explained if Osmond is on its own for basketball next year, it would be "very difficult" for the school dis - trict to field a high school boys' team based on the current number of boys out for the sport.
"The boys are very active," Bremer said. "They're in wrestling or they're in speech or they're in different arts programs, but for basketball right now, our numbers for young men are smaller. It's definitely going to be a challenge.
"We'll just continue to look to see if we can partner with someone to see what's out there because we want to do everything we can to get the most valuable season for our young men and our young women for basketball next year," he said.
In the other part of his letter to Bremer, Hoesing noted the discussion Wausa school board members had on meeting dates for the combined Wausa and Osmond school boards and joint committees.
"It was agreed that the four meeting dates a year two full meeting dates, two committee meeting dates were appropriate and a good way to maintain quality communication between the two districts on upcoming needs as well as track how our progress is going at each site in terms of what we agreed to co-op moving forward," Hoesing said.
The meetings held together by the two full school boards will be scheduled for January and June, while the joint committee meetings will be held on dates between the board meetings. All meetings will be open to the public.
"We look forward and are excited to work with Osmond Community School in the areas that we both see as a combined need in the future for both districts," Hoesing said.
