C-M school board votes to end WGS talk with Baxter

Collins-Maxwell/Baxter Athletic Director Lori Fricke got some surprising news after the Raider softball team shut out North Polk on Monday night.

Fricke, who is serving as an assistant for this year’s softball team, began receiving text messages about a decision the Collins-Maxwell Board of Education made earlier that night.

The C-M school board voted unanimously to end all conversations about whole grade sharing with Baxter High School.

When Fricke first learned of the decision, she needed just one word to describe her feelings.

“Shocked. I was completely baffled with the decision,” Fricke said. “It definitely caught me off guard. I stopped by Collins-Maxwell High School before the softball game, and I wasn’t told anything about it.”

The decision to end whole grade sharing talks with Baxter by Collins-Maxwell could ultimately lead to the termination of CMB athletics.

Baxter’s school board said at their most recent meeting that if it couldn’t work out a whole grade sharing agreement with Collins-Maxwell that it would find an athletic partner elsewhere or stand alone by itself.

“Our school board still has to make a decision, but I would be shocked if they don’t now vote to end the athletic sharing agreement with Baxter,” CMB High School Principal and football coach Rob Luther said. “The Baxter school board gave C-M a little more time to figure some stuff out and this decision is kind of a slap in the face. I don’t know what C-M will do now, but this is a decision its board made.”

While Fricke was shocked at the decision, Luther wasn’t completely confident that the positive steps made by both school boards would end in whole grade sharing between the two schools.

“I was a little surprised but not shocked,” Luther said. “I was a little more on the pessimistic side of things. Every step forward that both sides take, we take two steps back soon after. Right now, we are so far back that we can’t see the finish line.”

Collins-Maxwell and Baxter last year agreed to two more years of athletic sharing. That agreement runs through next summer.

Collins-Maxwell Board of Education President Bryce Caple said while the school board has no interest in whole grade sharing at this time, it does still want to continue the athletic sharing agreement.

“The decision to end whole grade sharing talks boiled down to the fact that we were told we would lose 15-20 percent of our students if we went through with whole grade sharing,” Caple said. “That’s between $400,000-$500,000 that we would lose. That would cripple us.”

Caple said the school board was told by families who open enroll to Collins-Maxwell would open enroll somewhere else if they went the whole grade sharing route. He also was told by families on the outskirts of town that they would choose to go to a neighboring school.

All five Collins-Maxwell school board members voted to end whole grade sharing talks with Baxter. But those same five all voted that they want to continue the athletic sharing agreement with Baxter.

“This was the toughest decision that our board had to make,” Caple said. “We realize that Baxter said they would terminate the sports sharing agreement if we don’t whole grade share. We are still in hopes that they reconsider that decision.”

CMB currently plays in the Heart of Iowa Conference with mostly Class 2A and 3A schools. If the two communities decide to break off athletically, Collins-Maxwell and Baxter will both likely be 1A schools.

Luther doesn’t know what the plan for Baxter moving forward would be, but he feels like the school itself could stand a lone for several years down the road.

“We are plus 100 in open enrollments and are secure financially,” Luther said. “We can be by ourselves for awhile. We would need to address the athletic situation though.”

Fricke said schedules for next season are pretty much done in all sports statewide. CMB will likely be untouched through next season. The two-year rotation in football would be affected in the second year, but Fricke said Baxter has the co-op with that sport.

“There are several options for us with football,” Fricke said. “Baxter has the co-op agreement for that sport so we could decide to play 2A football as a 1A school if we wanted to.”

Fricke has ties to both school districts. She is a 1988 graduate of Collins-Maxwell. Her and her husband Todd Fricke were seniors the year CMB began its athletic sharing agreement. They had siblings who followed them through CMB and they have three children who were part of the Raider family.

“CMB has a whole different meaning for us,” said Fricke, who teaches at Baxter but is now the only CMB athletic director. “It’s very sad for me personally. I truly don’t know where this recently went wrong. C-M told Baxter that they had to whole grade share with someone and they said Baxter was the option. It looked like 2018 was going to be the first year.”

Luther, who also graduated from Collins-Maxwell, said Collins-Maxwell and Baxter have never shared a single staff member in his 20 years of being associated with CMB.

“When Collins-Maxwell looks into sharing staff members, they also look elsewhere,” Luther said. “That’s where my frustration is.”

“I knew from the beginning of this whole situation that it was going to be a tough battle with the high school location. We need to find a way to get out of our comfort zone.”

Luther said the Baxter School Board met Monday night but did not become aware of Collins-Maxwell’s decision to end whole grade sharing talks until after its monthly meeting.

“I think the Baxter board wants to meet sooner to discuss this matter but decided to hold off until next month’s meeting because of the McWhirter funeral and because (Superintendent) Todd Martin just went on vacation.

Luther fully expects Baxter’s school board to decide to end the athletic sharing agreement when the current deal ends next summer. That will no doubt have an effect on next year’s athletic teams.

“It will be a tough year for our athletes, but we’ll get through it,” Luther said. “We have some resilient kids.”

CMB’s softball team is currently 16-6 and ranked 12th in Class 3A. Head coach Troy Houge, a physical education teacher at Collins-Maxwell, spoke with his team during Tuesdays practice about the decision made by the C-M school board.

“I told them that we need to play for the now and stay out of this situation as much as possible,” Houge said. “We can do some great things this year, but we have to stay focused.

“This situation is a mess. Everyone on both sides has made mistakes. We need a long-term solution.”