Beecher City, Cowden-Herrick Districts Discuss Co-oping in All Sports

The Beecher City and Cowden-Herrick school districts cooperate in almost all sports at the junior high and high school levels, and now discussions are underway to co-op in the final three sports.

The three sports still operated separately by each district are boys high school basketball, girls high school volleyball and boys junior high basketball.

The Beecher City school board was scheduled to vote on a full sports agreement with Cowden-Herrick at Monday night's meeting, but the item was pulled from the agenda.  Beecher City Superintendent Scott Cameron withdrew the item since Cowden-Herrick had not held a public meeting on the proposal.

Cowden-Herrick Superintendent Darrell Gordon Tuesday said he doesn't anticipate a public meeting at this time.  Gordon said the two districts had discussed lumping their expenses and income for sports and then splitting both in half.  The problem is that the Beecher City athletic budget is $101,000 while the Cowden-Herrick budget is $68,000.  Gordon doesn't think his public would be receptive to such a plan since it would raise Cowden-Herrick's expenses at a time when every district is looking to trim their budgets.

Gordon said the districts are now likely to look at letting the districts sponsor each sport rather than combining athletic budgets.  Under the scenario, Beecher City would sponsor the boys basketball team while Cowden-Herrick would sponsor the girls volleyball team and the junior high boys basketball team. 

Gordon expects further discussion, but isn't certain how soon the two districts can reach an acceptable conclusion.  He said the hope was that the matter could be concluded in time for the coming school year, but that's now not a certainty.