The Warren County R-III School Board has approved a cooperative agreement with Holy Rosary Catholic School to allow Holy Rosary students to participate in middle school sports on R-III teams for any sport that is not offered at Holy Rosary.

The board last week voted 4-1 to approve Holy Rosary as a Missouri State High School Activities Association cooperative sponsor for certain middle school sports. The middle school sports covered under the agreement are football, cross country, cheerleading, softball, track and field, and wrestling.

Warren County R-III Superintendent Gregg Klinginsmith said Holy Rosary reached out to see if the district would be willing to have a cooperative agreement for the Holy Rosary students to participate in the R-III district’s sports. Klinginsmith recommended the board approve the agreement. Many of the families at Holy Rosary pay taxes to the district, and it could help the district’s athletic programs, he said.

“Many of those students continue on to our high school programs,” Klinginsmith said. “Many of these residents do pay taxes here in the district. And so we thought, well it could help our programs grow athletically. But it does put an incentive potentially to not come to (Black Hawk) middle school. You could look at it that way.”

Board member Jeff Schneider said he believes offering cooperation as part of a community is a good thing. He also believes it could help with the transition Holy Rosary students face when they enter high school.

“My personal experience of playing sports at Holy Rosary in seventh and eighth grade and then making that transition into high school, is it’s not the easiest transition,” Schneider said. “So if we allow, it’s going to be talking about something that could be beneficial for students,” Schneider said. He acknowledged that the agreement could mean Holy Rosary students are playing a spot on a team that might otherwise have gone to an R-III student, but said the agreement would be an overall benefit.

“Especially with the numbers we’re talking. It wouldn’t surprise me if we’re talking two or three students total in all sports,” Schneider added.

Board Secretary Sarah Janes was the lone board member present at the meeting to vote against the measure. She noted students who are homeschooled who live in the district are required to be enrolled in and attend two district courses to play sports. Those students have to put the time and investment in the district in order to participate, she said. That helps the school with enrollment numbers and funding, she added.

“I see the long term investment of having the students involved,” Janes said. “Freshman year, they would already have those friendships which they might have already built third, fourth and fifth and sixth grade from over at Holy Rosary. But I’m nervous about the fairness of what we make home schooled kids do versus what we would make private school kids do.”

Janes also noted a student at Holy Rosary would not need to live in the district to participate on a Warren County R-III district team. She also said each sport has a certain cap of enrollment numbers that bumps the sport up to a different class. She does not believe the numbers for the 2022-2023 school year would bump a sport up a class, but noted it could impact what teams the school plays against in the future.

Klinginsmith said if the agreement is not working, the district can always allow the agreement to expire in the future.

School Board President Ginger Schenck liked the cooperative agreement. The numbers do not seem huge, and the agreement is only for the next school year, she added.

“Not that I’m saying we’re going to gut it at the end of one year, but we do have that option,” Schenck said. “And I like when there’s just one year (agreement), because we can’t really predict if something’s going to work out or not. And so I’m ok since we have that option if we needed to renew it and make changes, we could.”