Clintonville looks to change sports conferences

CLINTONVILLE – The Clintonville Board of Education approved supporting a request for the district to change athletic conferences for all district sports except football and boys and girls swim. 

The discussion and approval took place at the board’s Sept. 14 meeting. The approval allows the district to continue communicating with the district’s current conference as well as potential future conferences.

The board had previously discussed changing conferences at its Sept. 22, 2025, board meeting, but took no action at that time.

At the Sept. 14 meeting, Justin Oshefsky, activities director for the Clintonville School District, told the board that the district’s high school sports teams have a difficult time being competitive in the current conference alignment. He added that the district’s enrollment is the smallest in its conference.

In addition, Oshefsky said Clintonville’s sports teams travel an average of an hour and 15 minutes for road games, with two schools in the conference an hour and 30 minutes away.

“We do a lot of traveling, a lot of miles, a lot of late nights on school nights,” Oshefsky said.

Oshefsky said he would like to board to consider the district requesting to join the Central Wisconsin Conference, which has 21 members schools, with the sports split into three different divisions.

“We’re asking to explore the idea to start the process of notifying the WIAA on our plans,” Oshefsky said.

He said the deadline to notify the WIAA of the district’s plans is October of 2027.

While Oshefsky said the district has not had any discussion with Central Wisconsin Conference about Clintonville joining the conference, he said he’d like to be on the agenda for one of the conference’s upcoming meetings to make the request.

Oshefsky acknowledged that the district recently discussed the possibility of changing conferences, but Clintonville coaches were hesitant about such a move.

“Overall, our social and economic statuses of Clintonville, we fit in the Central Wisconsin (Conference),” Oshefsky said. “We can’t compete with the Freedoms or the Denmarks or the Lux-Cascos.”

He added that it’s no offense to Clintonville, but “unfortunately, that’s the facts. Our record speaks for itself in the NEC conference.”

Oshefsky predicted that if Clintonville changed to a conference that it would be more competitive in, the number of students participating in sports would increase.

Board member Christopher Hoffmann said he has spoken with parents who expressed concerns about the school’s football program. These concerns included the lack of students participating in football and students playing before they are ready because of the lack of numbers.

Oshefsky said the potential conference change would not include the school’s football program.

“Unfortunately, where we are, our location and our numbers, there’s no other conference,” Oshefsky said. “We are in the lowest conference that we can be in for football in our area. There’s no other conference for us to go that plays 11-man football.”

Hoffmann asked about the possibility of joining a conference with 8-man football.

Switching to a conference that has 8-man football would mean Clintonville’s football team would never be playoff eligible because of its enrollment numbers, Oshefsky said. He added that before the district considers a switch to 8-man football, it should consider a junior varsity only schedule to rebuild participation numbers.

Board member Mark Zachow asked what school year the potential conference change would take place.

Oshefsky said there are two different paths the district could take to request a conference change. The first path would be to request a “fast-track” path. If approved, it could take effect for the 2028-29 school year. In order to be approved for the fast-track path, all the schools in Clintonville’s current conference and all the schools in the conference Clintonville would want to change to would need to approve the change.

If the district is denied the fast-track path, then the district would have to request realignment, which is open in 2027. If approved, it could take effect for the 2029-30 school year.

Clintonville Superintendent Troy Kuhn added that if the district does not move forward with the request to change conferences, the next opportunity to request a conference change would be in 2031, with it possibly taking effect for the 2033-34 school year.

Board President Ben Huber asked Oshefsky if he thought the fast-track path would be approved.

Oshefsky said he thought some schools would say no.

If Clintonville would not be approved for the fast-track path, Oshefsky said the district would need to request a conference switch by Oct. 1, 2027. It would then have 45 days to submit a final review, which would include meeting with Clintonville’s current conference and the conference it wants to join, and have them vote on the change.

He added that if Clintonville’s request would be rejected by either conference, precedent has been set with Appleton West changing conferences after this year. This would be because of the sports records Clintonville has accumulated over the past five years.

“Basically, Appleton West got moved because of non-competitiveness,” Oshefsky said. “Basically, we’re in the same boat.”

When asked if he thought it would be a good idea for Clintonville to change conferences, Oshefsky said he does think it is a good idea. He added that if Clintonville would be approved to switch conferences, it could still play against schools it has rivalries with for its non-conference games.