By Sam Parsons
The Pella Community School Board held a regular meeting last night and unanimously approved an invitation to the Raccoon River Conference. The decision means the district will be migrating from the Little Hawkeye Conference to the new conference in the 2027-28 school year. Little Hawkeye Conference bylaws stipulate that schools must provide two years of notice when they wish to leave the conference.
Prior to the vote, the board received a presentation that showed logistical differences between the two conferences, including travel distances to other member schools. The presentation showed that the total combined distance between Pella and the other member schools was 528 miles for the Raccoon River Conference, compared to 341 miles for the Little Hawkeye Conference; however, school officials said that being in the Raccoon River Conference would provide the school with more flexibility in their non-conference scheduling, so that overall travel distance per-season would not significantly change.
The presentation also included a section with feedback from coaches within the Pella school district. Feedback was solicited from 16 different head coaches: 10 of them said they favored being in the Raccoon River Conference, citing similar school sizes and stability, while the remaining 6 head coaches said they were indifferent to the potential change. None of the 16 coaches said that they explicitly favored remaining in the Little Hawkeye Conference.
The Little Hawkeye Conference is in the midst of several other changes, with more potentially on the way. The conference has already approved two new members for the 2026-27 school year (Ames and Des Moines Christian) and also invited 5 other schools to join, including Knoxville, PCM, Urbandale, Nevada, and Van Meter, though they all declined the offer. Additionally, the Oskaloosa Community School District issued a statement in September that they would be “weighing options” regarding a potential conference change.
The next regular meeting for the Pella Community School Board will be held on January 12.
