The Flasher School Board met Wednesday night and held firm. Despite a threat that it will lose a football cooperative, it will send a bus into the Carson district to transport students who open enroll to the Flasher school.

The bus will roll into the Carson district Monday, making stops at farms and in Carson to pick up 16 students. Until now, the students and families have been on their own to meet the bus at the school district boundary.

Left up in the air is a threat from Carson and the Elgin-New Leipzig district to dissolve a football and track cooperative if the Flasher bus came into Carson.

Carson and Elgin-New Leipzig jointly operate schools in Carson and Elgin.

Those districts and Flasher get together for Class A 11-man football and track with a "Storm" mascot.

Flasher and Carson-Elgin-New Leipzig each have their own basketball and volleyball programs.

After Flasher voted last month to go get students from the Carson district after the Christmas break, the Carson and E-NL boards reacted with a threat to quit playing football and track with them.

Flasher held off on sending the bus Wednesday. Instead, it held a special meeting to talk about the dissolution threat and made no change after an hourlong meeting attended by 32 people.

Flasher school superintendent John Barry said he and Carson-E-NL superintendent Martin Shock met Thursday morning to discuss where to go next.

Schock said dissolving a football cooperative would make it tough for any small school to get enough boys to field a team.

Schock said it will be difficult to get the North Dakota High School Activities Association to dissolve a co-op until the association realigns teams again in 2009.

"It affects so many schools and schools in the region," Schock said.

Barry said the superintendents hope to get all three school boards together in January to talk about how to proceed.

"Our biggest focus is we still want to have the (sports) cooperative," Barry said. "Our decision was based on providing service to the patrons of the Carson district who are faithful to our school."

Schock said he was more disappointed than surprised that Flasher did not back away from its busing plan.

Schock said he thinks the boards are willing to talk, but he needed to confirm a procedure with the presidents of the Carson and the E-NL boards.

Barry said Flasher, Carson and E-NL share more than football and track. The schools are part of the same special education unit, a School Improvement district and share counseling services.

"We need each other," Barry said.

(Reach reporter Lauren Donovan at 888-303-5511, or lauren@westriv.com.)