Fisher: New Hampton pushing to remove Waverly from the NEIC

By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com

The 102-year old Northeast Iowa Conference can continue to exist, if Waverly-Shell Rock is removed, Charles City Superintendent Mike Fisher told the Charles City School District Board of Directors on Monday.

Fisher said that New Hampton — the smallest school in the district —  has requested that the school districts meet and consider the idea of having Waverly-Shell Rock removed from the conference.

Waverly-Shell Rock is the largest school in the conference, with more than twice the enrollment of New Hampton, and New Hampton and some of the other NEIC schools have expressed frustration as they are unable to consistently compete with the much larger school. There have also been recurring complaints of poor sportsmanship.

New Hampton and two other NEIC schools — Waukon and Crestwood — have been invited to join an expanded Upper Iowa Conference. Oelwein left the NEIC a year ago and joined the North Iowa Cedar League at the beginning of the school year, leaving the NEIC with just six schools.

If New Hampton, Crestwood and Waukon leave as well, only Charles City, Waverly and Decorah would remain. With just three schools, the NEIC would no longer be viable as a conference.

“I do believe, from conversations I’ve had with superintendents, that if Waverly-Shell Rock does leave, you’ll see other schools want to join the conference,” Fisher said. “In the event that the vote fails and the three schools leave, we do have contingency plans. We have a conference that we will be involved in.”

Fisher said that according to NEIC by-laws, it would take a majority vote — four conference schools — to remove Waverly from the NEIC.

“We would have a meeting of superintendents of the NEIC, and then the superintendents would go back to their school boards and have a resolution passed directing their superintendents how to vote on this,” Fisher said.

Fisher said the meeting wasn’t scheduled yet, but he expects it will take place in the next few weeks.

Charles City was one of the founding member schools of the NEIC in 1920. Charles City left the conference in 1939, then rejoined during the 1946-47 school year, and has been a member since then. Although the NEIC is most known for athletics, it also sponsors a music festival, a leadership conference and other academic events.

In September 2020, a district task force of students, coaches, staff members, school board members, parents and alumni recommended that Charles City leave the NEIC within two years and form a new conference with schools that share Charles City’s values of character and competence.

The recommendation came on the heels of an incident that took place during a baseball game at Waverly-Shell Rock where racist jeers were directed at a Charles City outfielder during a varsity baseball game.

In 2020, Fisher said he had talked to 10 other schools, and all 10 expressed interest in joining a new conference, including most of the current NEIC members. The one stipulation was that Waverly-Shell Rock not be included in the new conference. That idea never came to fruition.

Fisher said the fate of the NEIC needs to be decided soon, as the UIC’s invitation letter included a timeline that has a June 1 deadline for a school district to submit a formal request to join the conference.