Greenwood School Board votes to approve Granton basketball co-op, discusses upcoming projects
By Cheyenne Thomas After listening to thoughts and concerns raised by parents, students and staff about a potential basketball co-op with the Granton Area School District beginning this fall, the Greenwood School Board discussed and made the decision to begin a co-op program with Granton that will continue to be evaluated as talks to begin the consolidation process with the Loyal School District continue.
The board made its decision at its Jan. 29 meeting. The matter had first come before the board back in December, and the board had decided then to table the matter until its meeting in January to give the board time to have discussions with the community about their thoughts on a potential basketball co-op. The board held a public meeting on Jan. 13 to discuss the matter with the public and also reached out to coaching staff and current basketball players at the district to ask for their thoughts on a potential co-op with Granton. Those opinions weighed on the board’s minds during the meeting while they discussed what to do.
“I feel a little torn,” said Eliza Runic. “The feedback we got from the girls showed that most of them may not be in favor of a co-op while the boys are very much in favor.”
The question on consolidation with the Loyal School District that Greenwood will be asking residents about in an advisory referendum in April also made the board wonder about what decision would be the best one to make.
“We also have the referendum question in April,” said Ruzic. “If the residents say yes to that and want to consolidate with Loyal, what will happen to the co-op with Granton? Do we continue with them with Loyal or do we end the co-op after only a few years?”
“I look at it as we went to Loyal first to ask about a basketball co-op. They declined,” said Dean Lindner. “We went to them first and they passed on it. Even knowing that we sat down a year ago about this and talked about sharing and reaching out to other schools for the things we need. I assume Granton knows what is going on with us and Loyal and they still approached us about a co-op even knowing that we have this going on. What will that look like in two years? I don’t know, but I don’t think that it should stop us from moving forward with this right now.”
The board also discussed transportation concerns and practice schedules. With winter driving conditions, bus rides regularly down to Granton could be long and hazardous on County Road K, however the facilities at Granton would allow practices to be started and completed far earlier than basketball practices have been in Greenwood in recent years, even accounting for extra driving time.
“We would be getting done with practice at Granton at 6:30 p.m. versus the practices that we have had at Greenwood that have ended later,” said Lindner. “There were times when practices would be getting done here at 8:30 p.m.”
Numbers in a co-op with Granton was also a concern. If they went through with a co-op, the board said it wanted to do so with the intention of building up a strong program, making several references to the Greenwood-Granton football co-op that led to a state championship for the districts in 2011. Granton’s athletic director Jasmine Naedler was present at the meeting and the board asked her questions regarding Granton’s basketball numbers and the level of interest from students in the lower grades. According to Naedler, Granton has eight high school girls who have thus far expressed interest in playing basketball next year and 10 high school boys. In comparison, Greenwood has 13 girls and 22 boys who have expressed interest in playing basketball next year.
“I don’t want all the people at the meeting (held on Jan. 13) to think that we weren’t listening to them, but what is the right thing for the kids that are in ninth grade and below?” asked Ruzic. “We need to be thinking about the younger students who would be growing up into a co-op program.”
After the board completed its discussion, they unanimously voted to approve the co-op with Granton for basketball for the next two years, with plans to continue discussions with Granton and Loyal with regards to how a co-op would or would not work in the future with ongoing consolidation talks with Loyal. These discussions are expected to continue after the advisory referendum question in April, when the Greenwood and Loyal districts will know where the public stands on consolidation.
In other action taken by the board at its meeting, the board listened to a proposed project to redo the school’s tennis courts near the high school and seal coat the two school parking lots. District Administrator Joe Green told the board it had two options on replacing the tennis courts. The first is simply to resurface the current court with new asphalt, which would cost approximately $49,000. The second option, which would provide the courts with more longevity, would be to tear out the whole court down to the base and rebuild it back up, at a cost of approximately $69,000.
The option to entirely redo the tennis courts would be a two-year project. The court would be torn out and replaced with an asphalt surface in one year and a top-coat playing surface would be added in the following year after it has time to set. The plan would be to begin the replacement of the courts this summer after board approval and budget the project so its cost would be spread out between three school budgets.
“We can spread it over a few years of the budget,” he said. “We can do the first phase this summer and complete the second phase next year.”
By doing the courts this way, Green told the board that it could also tie the court replacement project with seal coating that needs to be completed on the high school and elementary school parking lots. Because the company would be completing both projects, Green said they would remove $20,000 off the total project cost to seal coat, since all of the equipment would be at Greenwood already to work on the tennis courts. Seal coating for the parking lots is currently projected at $35,000, but is subject to change based on the changing economy. The board decided to table the matter and make its decision at its February board meeting.
