YAKIMA -- A meeting between the 10 school districts that make up the Columbia Basin Big Nine athletic conference resulted in the league likely staying intact Tuesday.
The group met in Yakima to discuss different options for how to format the Class 4A and 3A league.
"The general consensus is that we could create a schedule that would meet the needs of all 15 schools in the CBBN and that we wanted to attempt to do that," said Rick Cole, Sunnyside School District superintendent. "In light of that, we said we would like to keep the CBBN together and create a working group to work rather rapidly to create a schedule."
A seven-member committee will meet next week in Yakima to build a schedule to keep the league together. The schedule will be unbalanced in an attempt to juggle geographic needs.
The committee will include representatives from Wenatchee, Richland, Walla Walla, Kennewick, West Valley, Moses Lake and Yakima school districts. John Miller and Brian Smith from the Washington Interscholastic Activities Assocation also will be at the meetings.
"The outcome of today was to create a plan to keep the league together and meet the needs of all 15 schools," Cole said. "All 10 districts want to decrease travel costs, have natural rivalries, keep kids in classrooms longer and make sure parents are actively involved in going to games."
After the committee comes up with a new schedule, the districts will reconvene to review and approve it.
On Tuesday, the districts talked about several possibilities, including a North-South division split, a split into four divisions, a Class 4A/3A alignment and remaining the same.
The plan to keep the league together comes after a tumultous month that saw the Tri-City schools and Walla Walla vote 8-7 to form North and South divisions. That vote was later overturned by the Yakima Valley Interscholastic Activities Assocation board on an appeal by Sunnyside, West Valley, Eisenhower and Davis high schools. The YVIAA ruled the Tri-City schools didn't follow the CBBN bylaws with their vote.
Now, the CBBN's districts have bought more time to try and keep the league together.
"Everyone talked about what is best for kids, what is best for parents," Cole said. "I don't know if everyone is going to get 100 percent of what they are hoping, but we should be able to meet nearly everyone's needs.
"The real sense of the meeting was that we want to keep the CBBN together."
A TUMULTUOUS MONTH
Dec. 15 -- CBBN principals vote 8-7 to split league into north and south divisions. South division would include seven Tri-City schools and Walla Walla. North division would be three Yakima schools, Sunnyside, Moses Lake and the two Wenatchee schools.
Early January -- West Valley, Davis, Eisenhower and Sunnyside appeal the 8-7 vote to the Yakima Valley Interscholastic Activities Association, saying the vote broke CBBN bylaws.
Jan. 11 -- YVIAA upholds the appeal, sending the league's members back to the drawing board.
Jan. 17 -- Representatives of the 10 CBBN districts meet and decide to form a committee of seven who will work with WIAA and each other to create a new schedule to address growing travel costs and geography issues.
* Craig Craker: 509-582-1509; ccraker@tricityherald.com; Twitter.com/craig_craker
