Chester BOE says no to Cahokia

<span>Chester is staying in the Black Diamond Conference, at least for now.</span>

<span>An agenda item approving an athletic conference change to the Cahokia Conference for sports at Chester High School failed to get a motion at the end of the board's four-hour meeting on Thursday.</span>

<span>"You know my opinion," said Interim Superintendent Rick Goodman to Board President Mitch Hammel prior to calling for a vote. "Stay where you're at."</span>

<span>Previously, Chester had two invitations in hand - one from the Southern Illinois River-to-River Conference and one from the Cahokia.</span>

<span>But the SIRR's invitation was contingent on Red Bud agreeing to make the move with Chester. The Chester BOE tabled a decision on the invitations during its January meeting without any open discussion.</span>

<span>Late last month, Red Bud administrators announced the Musketeers were staying in the Cahokia Conference. Both school boards had a deadline of March 1 to make their decisions.</span>

<span>"We just don't have any additional facts to go on," Goodman said after the meeting, when asked if the board hoped to discuss the topic more in open session. "The Cahokia wanted to wait on us to see what we were going to do and the River-to-River, their invitation was for us to come in if Red Bud came in.</span>

<span>"So Red Bud didn't go in and we lost our invitation, basically, as per their directions."</span>

<span>Last month, the Cahokia Conference met and formally accepted Salem as a new member. Red Bud was also given the option to move from the Mississippi Division (large schools) to the Kaskaskia Division (small schools).</span>

<span>"Red Bud went to the small side of the Cahokia," Goodman said. "So, we didn't have any more information and we needed to go ahead and get moving on something and not drag this out any longer.</span>

<span>"So, we can get our minds off of it because we've got other things we need to think about."</span>

<span>Goodman was asked if the conference change topic would be revisited next year.</span>

<span>"I believe that it probably will be because I'm predicting that there will be some invitations again," he said. "I understand invitations, but man, you've got to take some time to think about it, but only put so much time into something like that.</span>

<span>"So we'll stay in the Black Diamond for another year and see what happens next year."</span>

<span>Goodman said he did not know if the SIRR's invitation would have been the preferred one if it was still on the table.</span>

<span>"I really don't know if it would have been that or not," he said.</span>

<span>Goodman was asked the board's feelings on the Cahokia's invitation.</span>

<span>"Basically, you know we had discussed it before," Goodman said. "It just got to a point where we were getting no more information and, like I said, we just needed to make a decision so we can move on.</span>

<span>"That's kinda what we did."</span>