Falls School Board agrees to continue co-op athletic teams

Menomonee Falls - Lean budgets have schools looking for savings and Menomonee Falls athletics re-certified its efforts to partner with local schools to create efficient student programs.

On Monday, the Menomonee Falls School Board took the first step to approve the continuation of two athletic co-op programs with Sussex Hamilton and Germantown schools. The boys swimming and diving team in Menomonee Falls has been a dual program with Sussex Hamilton since 1998.

In 2006, Germantown was added after the district closed its pool.

Menomonee Falls Athletic Director Dave Petroff said facilities and student interest were the biggest drivers of co-op programs.

"In the case of swimming you have a situation where neither Germantown nor Hamilton have pools so that's certainly one factor," Petroff said. "With hockey, sometimes the numbers, you don't have enough kids to field a team."

"In gymnastics, any one school might only have four of five gymnasts, but you combine the schools you might have 14,15,18."

Part of Monday's vote was also to certify the agreement for girls gymnastics, a partnership between Falls and Germantown since 2004. According to WIAA rules, each school district must approve the programs every two years to continue running dual programs.

Girls swimming has been running a dual program with Sussex since 1990, by far the longest-running program in Menomonee Falls. Girls hockey, on the other hand, just began being offered in 2010 when a co-op agreement was formed with Kettle Moraine.

Before that, girls were playing on the boys team, which was already a co-op team with Hartford, Hamilton, Slinger and the two high schools in West Bend. Falls joined that group in 2002 with Sussex.

Joint programs are pro-rated based on student participation, meaning if Menomonee Falls contributes one player to a 10 person team, it's responsible for 10 percent of the costs to run that program.

All school boards in the member districts have to approve these cooperative programs and then the WIAA must approve them.

"If the WIAA believes you have ample opportunity to field a team, it would not approve a co-op," Superintendent Pat Greco said. The long-standing nature of these co-ops makes that unlikely although in a case like swimming where Falls has the necessary facilities, it could stand alone as a program if it had enough willing student-athletes.

On the other hand, that would leave Germantown and Hamilton, already without a pool, without a convenient place to offer that program.