The Flandreau School Board has approved continuing preliminary discussions with the Colman-Egan School District about a possible wrestling cooperative.

Superintendent Rick Weber said his counterpart at Colman-Egan has been talking with the school board there about forming a wrestling co-op. Colman-Egan has a seventh grader interested in wrestling.

Any cooperative, if it were to be approved by the two school boards, would then have to be approved by the South Dakota High School Activities Association.

The association uses the average daily membership of the cooperative schools to decide the class in which the team would participate. Weber said that even with the addition of the Colman-Egan enrollment, the Fliers would continue to wrestle in Class B.

Weber explained that if the cooperative were formed, the boards would need to decide how much Colman-Egan would contribute to the salary of the wrestling coach and the logistics for getting the student from Colman-Egan to Flandreau for practices.

While some athletic cooperatives result in new team names and school colors, Weber said that wouldn’t be the case with just one student coming over from Colman-Egan.

“There’s no need for us to change,” Weber said, noting that the Colman-Egan student would wrestle as a Flandreau Flier.

Board chairman Darren Hamilton said in the future there may be other instances when the two school districts need to form a cooperative. Hamilton said it is important for this first one to “get off on the right foot.”

The board instructed Weber to remain in communication with Colman-Egan about the possible cooperative.