Lawmakers who represent towns that make up the school districts of Waverly-Shell Rock and Decorah are sponsoring bills to establish a new committee to review conference realignment. After W-SR was kicked out of the Northeast Iowa Conference the conference failed to replace them leading to its dissolvment. This left Decorah without a conference and with no like-sized conferences near them. W-SR applied to be admitted into the WaMaC but were denied. Both schools lost their appeals to state officials. Representative Michael Bergan of Dorchester represents Decorah in the Iowa House. He says the suggested process is similar to the one used in Wisconsin.
House Speaker Pat Grassley of New Hartford represents Waverly and Shell Rock. He is cosponsoring the bill with Bergan. An identical bill in the senate is co-sponsored by Mike Klemish of Spillville and Sandy Salmon of Janesville.
Speaker Grassley spoke with our Matt Ray about this bill: