After months of negotiations between the Crawford and Sioux County School Boards the decision has been made to co-op the two schools activities going forward with both school boards voting 5-1 in favor of forming the activities cooperative.
The Crawford Public Schools Board of Education along with the Sioux County Public Schools Board of Education met separately in Crawford and Harrison Monday night for their regular meetings. One topic loomed large amid both meetings and after months of negotiations, a failed vote on October 29th and heartfelt discussions with the public it was time to vote once again on whether to co-op Crawford and Sioux County activities or to keep trudging down the road as rivals separated by 26 miles.
The initial vote back in October was a resounding yes by Sioux County, 5-0 was the tally. Crawford on the other hand witnessed a 3-3 tie vote, which in a vote that needed a majority decision to pass meant it had failed.
Since October 29th the schools met time and time again, refining what a co-op would look like. The final draft of the handbook was revealed to the public on April 7th, six days before it was time to vote.
Some of the big things that were in the handbook include that the co-op will include most all activities from 7th grade up through varsity level sports. Football will not be a part of the initial co-op in 2026-2027 due to scheduling timelines and will be added at a later time according to the handbook.
Evenly split is a major theme of the handbook, all varsity practices and home contests will be alternated between the schools as evenly as possible. If weather prevents the traveling between schools each district will determine if practice will be held at their district with student-athletes from the other district not permitted to travel to the district having practice.
Cost is set to be split evenly between the two districts with coaches’ salaries being taken from the district with the higher base salary.
Now a look at the junior high side of this. Junior high student athletes will practice at their home district 2-3 days per week with one joint practice per week.
The cooperative will see its first action on August 10th when practice for all fall sports is allowed to start. The first contest according to the NSAA is allowed to happen on August 27th.
See the full final draft of the cooperative handbook which is available on cpsrams.org as well below
