281—36.13(280) Cooperative student participation. Notwithstanding any other provision of this chapter, in the event a member or associate member school does not directly make participation in an interscholastic activity available to its students, the governing board of the member or associate member school may, by formally adopted policy if among its own attendance centers, or by written agreement with the governing board of another member or associate member school, provide for the eligibility of its students in interscholastic activities provided by another member or associate member school. The eligibility of students under a policy, insofar as applicable, or a written agreement is conditioned upon the following:
	36.13(1) All terms and conditions of the agreement are in writing;
	36.13(2) The attendance boundary of each school that is party to the agreement is contiguous to or contained within the attendance boundary of one of the other schools, unless the activity is not offered at any school contiguous to the party district, or all schools that are contiguous refuse to negotiate an agreement with the party district, in which case the contiguous requirement may be waived by the applicable governing organization. For the purposes of this rule, a nonpublic school member will utilize the attendance boundaries of the public school in which its attendance center is located;
	36.13(3) Any interscholastic activity not available to students of the schools participating in the agreement may be included in the agreement. A school’s students may be engaged in cooperative activities under the terms of only one agreement.
However, if several schools are in a consortia cooperative agreement for a specific activity, they are not precluded from having a separate agreement with one or more of the same schools for a different activity as long as all schools of the consortia agree to such a separate agreement;
	36.13(4) Agreements will be for a minimum of one school year. Amendments may be made to agreements, including allowing additional member schools to join an existing agreement, without necessarily extending the time of existence of the agreement;
	36.13(5) All students participating under the agreement are enrolled in one of the schools, are in good standing, and meet all other eligibility requirements of these rules;
	36.13(6) A copy of the written agreement between the governing boards of the particular schools involved, and all amendments to the agreement, will be filed with the appropriate governing organization(s) no later than April 30 for the subsequent year, unless exception is granted by the organization for good cause shown. The agreements and amendments are deemed approved unless denied by the governing organization(s) within ten calendar days;
	36.13(7) It is the purpose of this rule to allow individual students participation in interscholastic competition in activities not available to them at the school they attend, through local policy or arrangements made between the governing boards of the schools involved, so long as the interscholastic activities of other schools are not substantially prejudiced. Substantial prejudice includes situations where a cooperative effort may result in an unfair domination of an activity or substantial disruption of activity classifications and management. In the event an activity organization determines, after investigation, that an agreement between schools that was developed under the terms of this rule results in substantial prejudice to other schools engaged in the activity, or the terms of the agreement are not in conformity with the purpose and terms of this rule, the activity organization may give timely notice to the schools involved that the local policy or agreement between them is null and void for the purposes of this rule, insofar as cooperative student participation is concerned with a particular activity. Determinations are appealable to the director of education under the applicable terms of rule 281—36.10(280). For notice to be timely, it must be given at least 45 calendar days prior to the beginning of the activity season.
This rule is intended to implement Iowa Code section 280.13.
[ARC 7657C, IAB 3/6/24, effective 4/10/24]