Notwithstanding any other provision of this chapter, in the
event a member or associate member school does not directly make participation
in an interscholastic activity available to its students, the governing board
of the member or associate member school may, by formally adopted policy if
among its own attendance centers, or by written agreement with the governing
board of another member or associate member school, provide for the eligibility
of its students in interscholastic activities provided by another member or
associate member school. The eligibility of students under a policy, insofar as
applicable, or a written agreement is conditioned upon the following:
(1) All terms and conditions of the agreement
are in writing;
(2) The attendance
boundary of each school that is party to the agreement is contiguous to or
contained within the attendance boundary of one of the other schools, unless
the activity is not offered at any school contiguous to the party district, or
all schools that are contiguous refuse to negotiate an agreement with the party
district, in which case the contiguous requirement may be waived by the
applicable governing organization. For the purposes of this rule, a nonpublic
school member will utilize the attendance boundaries of the public school in
which its attendance center is located;
(3) Any interscholastic activity not
available to students of the schools participating in the agreement may be
included in the agreement. A school's students may be engaged in cooperative
activities under the terms of only one agreement.
However, if several schools are in a consortia cooperative
agreement for a specific activity, they are not precluded from having a
separate agreement with one or more of the same schools for a different
activity as long as all schools of the consortia agree to such a separate
agreement;
(4) Agreements
will be for a minimum of one school year. Amendments may be made to agreements,
including allowing additional member schools to join an existing agreement,
without necessarily extending the time of existence of the agreement;
(5) All students participating under the
agreement are enrolled in one of the schools, are in good standing, and meet
all other eligibility requirements of these rules;
(6) A copy of the written agreement between
the governing boards of the particular schools involved, and all amendments to
the agreement, will be filed with the appropriate governing organization(s) no
later than April 30 for the subsequent year, unless exception is granted by the
organization for good cause shown. The agreements and amendments are deemed
approved unless denied by the governing organization(s) within ten calendar
days;
(7) It is the purpose of this
rule to allow individual students participation in interscholastic competition
in activities not available to them at the school they attend, through local
policy or arrangements made between the governing boards of the schools
involved, so long as the interscholastic activities of other schools are not
substantially prejudiced. Substantial prejudice includes situations where a
cooperative effort may result in an unfair domination of an activity or
substantial disruption of activity classifications and management. In the event
an activity organization determines, after investigation, that an agreement
between schools that was developed under the terms of this rule results in
substantial prejudice to other schools engaged in the activity, or the terms of
the agreement are not in conformity with the purpose and terms of this rule,
the activity organization may give timely notice to the schools involved that
the local policy or agreement between them is null and void for the purposes of
this rule, insofar as cooperative
student participation is concerned with a
particular activity. Determinations are appealable to the director of education
under the applicable terms of rule
281-36.10 (280). For notice to
be timely, it must be given at least 45 calendar days prior to the beginning of
the activity season.
This rule is intended to implement Iowa Code section
280.13.
