Board offers compromise with Jr. High co-op
By Suzanne Werre
Editor
Both Turtle Lake-Mercer and Underwood school boards agree that the best route for both schools is to continue with a Central McLean co-op, with McClusky making up the third piece of the co-op.
In recent months, Underwood and McClusky have indicated they would like to increase the co-op to include all varsity sports, which would mean adding volleyball and boys and girls basketball. Turtle Lake-Mercer is already in a separate co-op with McClusky that includes those sports.
At Thursday’s regular board meeting, the Turtle Lake-Mercer School Board members looked through projected participation numbers, heard from several audience members in favor of expanding the Central McLean co-op to include all sports, and stuck to their earlier determination that Turtle Lake-Mercer neither needs nor wants to increase the co-op, citing local sentiment against the co-op.
Rather than adding varsity-level basketball and volleyball to the co-op, the board approved by a 4-2 vote asking if Underwood would be interested in adding those junior high sports to the co-op.
