Well, let’s hope today is a little calmer than yesterday. The Lake Conference shenanigans blew up early in the afternoon and the rest of the day was some wild ride, wasn’t it?

As the dust settles, I’m getting some fresh feedback this morning from people behind the scenes in the Lake and elsewhere. Here is the latest update…

–Lake superintendents might be a little upset with their principals. School boards are supposed to make the major decisions for their school districts, and conference membership fits that framework. I’m hearing that Lake superintendents are reminding their principals — who sit on the Lake executive committee and attended yesterday’s meeting — that the principals don’t have the authority to do what they did; i.e., threaten the MSHSL with massive conference realignment.

–Lake folks are sniping at each other about details from the meeting making their way to me. An email circulating among administrators reads in part: “Less than 90-minutes after we had a “private” meeting (today’s LC meeting) today, someone from our group leaked the information to John Millea (Star Tribune). I am disappointed that someone “from within” is pumping John Millea with factual data, not the way we should be doing business.”

This is interesting; not so much the content of the email but the timing. When it was sent yesterday, the report on this blog still was saying that the nine Lake schools had voted to withdraw from the league in 2010-11; there had been no updates (which came later) saying that no official vote had been taken. The words “factual data” in the email makes me wonder if the Lake withdrawal isn’t already assumed to be a done deal.

–I just viewed the Powerpoint presentation that Lake representatives used in their presentation to the MSHSL placement committee on June 15. It’s fairly straightforward, and it also, at least in my mind, displays some of the Lake’s behind-the-scenes arrogance that I had been told about. In the presentation, the Lake makes its case based on four criteria: Geography, enrollment, comparable athletic/extracurricular activities, and conference structure/orgainzation. This involved lots of lists, maps and charts.

One slide reads: “Very few of the schools in the Lake Conferences look like Classic Lake schools in terms of facilities, turf fields, and booster club potential.” Another argues that due to all these factors, the Lake (with 12 schools) should receive fewer Classic Lake schools than the Northwest Suburban (11 schools). The Lake also argued that travel would be easier for the Classic Lakes if they went to the NW Suburban.

Also, these messages were presented to the committee: “The Lake Conference is currently thriving and wants no additional schools.” And, “Rumors are rampant about what will happen; decisions should not be based on rumors.”

The Lake’s final statement in the presentation was this: “Being realistic, the data shows clearly that the Lake Conference should get one school.” The word “one” was in bright red type.

I don’t know if the placement committee members were offended in any way by the Lake representatives and their presentation, but if they were I can understand it.

–Among the emails I received this morning were some things that should be addressed. One person brought up the argument that Eden Prairie must build a second high school. I hear this a lot, and I am told by people in the Eden Prairie school district that their enrollment is peaking (or soon will). As someone stated here on the blog yesterday, it’s way too late for EP to build another high school. Those decisions were made years ago, and now the point is moot. Another emailer argues, on historical and geographical grounds, that no conference can be called the “Lake” if it doesn’t have any members close to Lake Minnetonka. All I can say is that while the original Lake Conference might have been so named due to Lake Minnetonka, there are plenty of lakes in Minnesota.

As always, this is an open forum for anyone to pitch in with their thoughts. This blog saw tremendous traffic yesterday and plenty of great posts were made by you folks. Thanks for your input. 

John Millea is on Twitter at www.twitter.com/stribjohnÂ

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 at 11:24 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.