ALL-FREEMAN SPORTS DEAL A GO

Freeman Public School Board votes 5-0 at special meeting Monday night to accept proposal from Freeman Academy for 2025-26 partnership; team will play as Flyers and remain Class B for next year.

Next school year, students attending Freeman Public Schools and Freeman Academy will have an opportunity to compete, not as opponents, but as teammates. That’s because the Freeman Public School Board unanimously approved a sports cooperative proposal from Freeman Academy at a special meeting Monday night, April 21.

The Freeman Academy Board of Directors also green-lighted the deal at a noon meeting on Tuesday, April 22, according to board president Brian Paff.

The all-Freeman cooperative will compete in Class B as the Flyers in cross-country, boys and girls basketball, golf, track and field, and volleyball, as well as cheer. Per the proposal put forth by the Academy, all varsity games and practices will be hosted by Freeman Public, with the option of using Sterling Hall as a practice facility if and when necessary.

Also next year, three other sports will finish out the final year of their previous cooperatives — the Freeman/Marion/Freeman Academy Phoenix in football and softball, and the Marion/Freeman Rebels in wrestling.

Freeman Academy soccer — which plays under the Bobcats name and includes players from Freeman Public, Marion and Parker — will continue as is indefinitely.

Monday night’s 5-0 vote in favor of the new deal came less than a week after an earlier special meeting was called to hear Freeman Academy’s formal proposal, and to provide the opportunity for public input. Last Wedenday’s meeting drew mixed input from those speaking out and more questions about if a possible jump from Class B to Class A was in Freeman Public’s best interest. (Read more about the April 16 meeting on page 6A.)

But the following day — Thursday, April 17 — Freeman Public received assurance from the South Dakota High School Activities Association (SDHSAA) that the all-Freeman partnership would compete in Class B for the 2025-26 school year.

In an email sent to Freeman Superintendent Jake Tietje Thursday, April 17, SDHSAA Executive Director Dan Swartos confirmed that the association will use the current combined ADM of 87.09 as part of the formal approval process. The cutoff for Class A is 89.999.

Should the new combined ADM come in at 90 or above when the new count is taken next fall, Swartos told Tietje that Freeman Public would have the option of abandoning the arrangement with Freeman Academy following the 2025-26 school year — an arrangement that on paper is only good for that year, anyway.

Freeman Public has been clear with Freeman Academy that that is a possibility.

Current state

The Freeman Public School Board’s special meeting Monday night lasted just nine minutes and included no request for public comment, other than several minor amendments and clarifications to Freeman Academy’s proposal articulated by Paff.

Freeman Public board members said any previous concerns had been resolved thanks to last week’s word from the SDHSAA, and Paff offered thanks in his closing remarks that came just minutes before the vote.

“I don’t want to be presumptive of how the vote may go,” he said, “but I know how much of a thankless job this is because we sit in the same chairs as you, and often times you hear complaints and concerns, and sometimes those thank-yous get suppressed further and further down.

“I just want to say that, throughout this process, I have received a lot of thank-yous, both from our constituents and from yours,” he continued. “And I want to echo that word of gratitude. I know that this was a speedy process as we found ourselves scrambling, and we are really grateful for this opportunity.

“I’m hopeful that, should you vote yes in favor of this proposal, that this could be the start of something really beautiful between our two schools and something that can bring this community together.”

Monday’s resolution concludes a weeks-long saga triggered by a request from the Marion School District in early March asking that Freeman Public consider an expansion of the Phoenix cooperative that began with football in 2022 and today includes softball.

Freeman’s board appeared to be lukewarm to the idea at best, which led Marion to reach out to Parker to gauge interest in a long-term sports deal there — a development that moved quickly. Less than three weeks later, Marion and Parker had both submitted proposals for a nine-year sports agreement, with the final deal OK’d by the Marion School Board on April 13 and the Parker School Board on April 17.

That action brings an end to the Freeman Academy/Marion Bearcats program that began in 2016, which is what led Freeman Academy school officials to reach out to Freeman Public inquiring about a new agreement with their crosstown counterparts.

“We’re not asking for a lot of concessions,” Paff told the board at its regular monthly meeting on April 14. “We understand that we don’t have a lot of bargaining chips, but I do think we have something to contribute to the collective sports programs at Freeman Public.”

Paff noted that Freeman Academy was offered the opportunity to attach to the Parker/Marion cooperative, but that was not ideal.

“The logistics of us going to the majority of our practices and home games in Parker is one of the reasons we’re here, but I don’t want this to seem like it’s just a marriage of convenience,” he said on April 14. “I think there’s a lot of good that can come out of this.”