Red Oak School Board pondering conference move

The Red Oak School District is strongly considering a move in sports conferences.
At the regular school board meeting July 16, superintendent Ron Lorenz discussed the situation, saying Red Oak and Shenandoah and several other Western Iowa school districts are navigating a period of uncertainty as multiple athletic conferences explore realignment.
“On June 11, the Western Iowa Conference, the WIC, reached out to 10 districts, including Red Oak and Shenandoah, sent an invitation that can actually be better characterized as a solicitation of interest, but they were trying to determine what level of interest these districts would have in joining their conference. After Aug. 1, they are going to have individual meetings with the districts that express an interest or willingness to explore that, and have a meeting with them to discuss their viability and how they fit into the new structure,” said Lorenz.
Lorenz added the WIC is aiming for a full transition by the 2027-2028 school year. Meanwhile, the Hawkeye 10 Conference, which currently includes Red Oak and Shenandoah, has voted to expand by inviting Treynor and Carroll with a goal of forming two divisions based on school size.
“If either of those two districts accepts by September 1, their membership is automatically approved. However, no additional expansion candidates have been identified thus far. Activities directors were tasked with going out and finding other districts to invite, but no other districts have been identified,” commented Lorenz.
To make things more complicated, the Missouri River Conference has invited four Hawkeye 10 schools to join.
“Lewis Central, Denison-Schleswig, Glenwood, and Harlan have been invited, with the hopes of also forming two divisions. Any departure from the Hawkeye 10 could trigger broader shifts, so we’re waiting to see what happens there,” said Lorenz.
On July 21, the Shenandoah School Board unanimously approved accepting the invitation from the WIC Conference. Lorenz said for Red Oak, each option presents some trade-offs.
“The WIC offers somewhat tighter geography, potential parity, all are restructured. The Hawkeye 10 offers familiarity, tradition, but we don’t know what that might look like if some of those schools would leave for the MRC. Since we do not have a board meeting before Aug. 1, I have already communicated with the WIC that we are very interested in exploring this further,” stated Lorenz.
While Shenandoah has taken official action, Lorenz favored seeing how things transpired.
“I would prefer to wait to see what the WIC’s invitation looks like. Is it actually an invitation? Also, who would actually be in the WIC if we were to accept? We’re not going to know that until early this month at the earliest,” Lorenz explained.
No further action was taken.
Lorenz also shared with the board that there were strong enrollment numbers from online registration, which began July 1.
“We had some staff that correctly pushed to get this process moving sooner to have a single kind of in-house registration period, and as a result, we have about 80% of the number of kids that we were expecting already enrolled. That is up tremendously. We were three weeks ahead of where we were for last year. So based on last year’s end-of-year enrollment graduation numbers, the district is anticipating 852 returning students. As I said, 80% of that number have already registered. That’s 684 kids. This includes 30 new and 17 returning students who have completed registration. Among those are several who were previously homeschooled or did not enroll in the district,” Lorenz stated.
Lorenz said they remained hopeful that the district will get some new families moving in, which will add to enrollment, and some open enrolling students as well.
As for the total enrollment, Lorenz said they’d have a clearer picture towards the end of August, and Oct. 1 is the official count date.