Team shares success story of combining with Wrenshall

Joining forces can be difficult.

Hesitant at first, members of the only combined Carlton-Wrenshall sports team told Carlton school board members Monday that the two teams started out the 2018 fall season feeling like two teams, but ended it united in friendship and competition.

“In the beginning, I was not excited about joining with Carlton,” wrote Wrenshall junior Alexis Schmidt in a letter to the board. “The rivalry between our two schools made it really hard, but now that we’ve gotten to know each other, we aren’t a team, we’re a family.”

Carlton Junior Spencer Hoeffling said it was “super fun” and talked about how combining teams made for bigger numbers, which meant they had enough runners to compete as a team, which hasn’t happened in the past because it requires five varsity runners.

Boys coach Erik Holter explained the myriad benefits: how having a larger group of kids made all of the kids more competitive, giving kids of similar levels more people to run with and compete with at practice. The school districts saved money on buses, splitting costs down the middle, and each contributed a coach, with Holter for the boys and Carlton’s Dalyce Gustafson coaching the girls.

They even renamed themselves the “Munger Martians,” Gustafson said.

Holter also read three letters from students who couldn’t make the meeting, including Schmidt’s and one from Wrenshall senior Gavin Trettel, who explained how it was nice to work with a larger team, so they could push each other harder.

“But most of all we were there to pick each other up when we fell or just felt like giving up,” he wrote. “I think the combining of teams gives us a better outlook on how to be a team and not just a school sport.”

He continued.

“If we could continue to join together, I think we could achieve great things as a team, as friends, as a community, and most of all as one great big competition for a lot of other schools.”

So far, the two schools have not combined for any other sports, including track, as the Carlton coach felt they had more than enough athletes. Football hasn’t been a good sell to Carlton yet either, as the teams might move out of the nine-bracket by combining. Decisions on fall sports are not yet final. Additionally, the Wrenshall school board chair recently reiterated their board’s interest in further discussing “extracurricular cooperation.”

Holter suggested that combining other teams will make kids more competitive and teach them important life lessons as well, because varsity spots won’t be guaranteed just because a person shows up.

“It does make them work to earn a spot,” he said. “I came from a team like that, I busted my butt to make sure I could play and wear that jersey. I look at that as not just earning my spot to play a sport, but to help encourage me to work hard to earn my take in life too.”

Board chair LaRae Lehto asked about challenges.

Holter said it took about a week to figure out how and where to have practices. Gustafson said transportation to practices at the other school presented challenges, until they found a bus route that would drop kids off close to the practice site.

Next year will be easier, Holter said, because the coaches already know the kids, and have a good idea of who is already working hard and ready to step up.

As for the kids, Hoeffling said several of them are in a group chat and planning to get a group together over the summer to work out together.

“It should be fun,” he said.

Although it worked for the cross-country team, so far the Carlton and Wrenshall school boards have been unable to even get on the same bus.

Later Monday, board members were unable to reach consensus regarding the portion of the school district’s proposed strategic plan that deals with engaging in consolidation discussions with the Wrenshall school board.

The action step falls under the larger “vision component No. 4” which revolves around making sure all learners and staff in the Carlton school district “have a physical learning/working environment that is safe, flexible, functional, appealing and well maintained that supports 21st-century learning and that is open to the community.”

They discussed that one vision element for more than an hour Monday, with most of the talk centering around the divisive on-again, off-again discussions with Wrenshall. Board members almost reached consensus on a decision to request a face-to-face meeting between the two boards, which both have some new members, just to get to know each other, before that was derailed by worry over discussion guidelines and who would facilitate discussions.

After an hour and 15 minutes, Chair Lehto called a halt to the discussions and suggested the board set an extra committee of the whole meeting in April to further discuss the strategic plan.

The board also agreed to simply send a letter to the Wrenshall school board noting they had received their most recent letter, and were researching and discussing their options.

Also Monday:

Board members heard from the school’s YES! Team, which stands for Youth, Eco, Solutions, which is pushing for the school district to move away from flimsy plastic sporks to stainless steel cutlery. It will save the district money and help the environment, as the plastic that the sporks are made of “takes more than a millennium to break down.”

Board members congratulated winter athletes for being recognized on all school athletic teams, including Taylor Nelson for girls hockey, Jacob Santkuyl for boys basketball and Alainia Bennett and Abby Mickle in girls basketball.

They also congratulated the CHS robotics team for placing 27th out of 62 teams in the recent regional competition as well as the high school band, which got three Superior ratings in a recent competition.

Several audience members also addressed the board Monday, regarding board responsibilities and recent behaviors, as well as the public communications between the Carlton and Wrenshall School districts playing out on the opinion pages of the local newspapers.

Former citizen advisory council member Lori Gamble suggested that the board give a citizens group the authority to work with Wrenshall, if they are unable to do it themselves.

The next Carlton school board regular meeting is 7 p.m. Monday, April 15.