Apr. 3—FARGO — Fargo Public Schools has discontinued high school gymnastics, a sign of a wider issue that could bring an end to that level of competition in North Dakota.

In February, the school district announced it would cut an unidentified, lesser-used athletic program for a cost savings of $35,000 as part of

steps to reduce a budget deficit.

The Forum has learned the dropped sport is gymnastics, with low participation numbers cited as the reason.

Todd Olson, activities director at FPS, said the district started a co-op in 2023 between Fargo North, Fargo South and Fargo Davies high schools, along with Oak Grove and Shanley high schools, to try to preserve the program.

"Out of those five schools, we ended up with three kids," Olson said.

Those students decided in mid-February to forgo the rest of the season, including conference and state competitions.

The move leaves the state with just nine intact high school gymnastics programs, down from 12 teams in place from 2016 through 2023, according to the North Dakota High School Activities Association.

Before Fargo, the most recent to drop programs were Valley City and Grand Forks.

The Eastern Dakota Conference, with 11 member schools, has just one gymnastics team left, in Wahpeton/Breckenridge, Olson said.

The other eight teams in the state are all in central or western North Dakota.

Under a 2024 NDHSAA policy, the threshold for "sunsetting" programs that have declining interest is fewer than 12 participating teams or schools in an activity or sport that previously had that number.

Matthew Fetsch, executive director of NDHSAA, said gymnastics coaches were notified before the 2024-25 season that the sport was "at-risk."

The NDHSAA Board of Directors can choose to no longer sponsor a state tournament for "at-risk" activities when there are fewer than 12 teams for three consecutive years, putting the program in probationary status.

The 2026-27 high school gymnastics season and state championships are safe, Fetsch said, but the status is up in the air after that.

Current teams will have to be maintained and new teams added, or some growth demonstrated, for high school gymnastics not to be threatened with discontinuation.

The program with perhaps the most at stake is Dickinson, which recently won an 11th consecutive state team title, its 20th overall.

The last time a Fargo team won was in 1990, when Fargo South claimed the team title.

Whether a school is able to field a high school team is tied to the size and location of a community, but more important factors might be the prevalence of gymnastics clubs and how they interact with local high school teams.

Dickinson's high school and club programs are intertwined, whereas Fargo's programs were not.

"Gymnastics is definitely, far and away, more impacted by the club scene than anything else we do, or that we sanction," Fetsch said.

Virtually all of the top gymnasts on the far eastern side of North Dakota compete exclusively in club gymnastics sanctioned by USA Gymnastics, the national governing body for the sport in the U.S.

That includes athletes from Fargo, West Fargo, Moorhead and surrounding communities, as well as the Grand Forks/East Grand Forks area.

In the F-M area, club athletes train at either American Gold Gymnastics or TNT Kids Fitness and Gymnastics.

Whitney Beck, competitive director and head coach at AGG, said the club is preparing 20 athletes for Developmental Regional competition and 33 athletes for Xcel Regionals this month. Fourteen AGG boys already competed at Men's Regionals, with six of them qualifying to the next step, Men's Westerns.

Beck said it's "surprising on the surface" that a city the size of Fargo would struggle to sustain a high school gymnastics team.

The issue isn't overall participation in gymnastics, she said, but how that participation translates into the high school setting.

Athletes who train together in club programs often attend multiple different school districts, so the natural team dynamic doesn't carry over.

"I think, ultimately ... it's a structure and culture problem. The athletes are there. The question is whether the environment gives them a reason to pursue the high school path," Beck said.

Olson acknowledged the difficulty in finding and keeping high school gymnastics coaches.

He said the biggest factor in the decline of high school gymnastics is the success of the two, high-quality gymnastics club programs.

"I think our top gymnasts have been drawn to those for many years," he said.

Logan Midthun, activities director at West Fargo Public Schools, said high school gymnastics there was terminated sometime in the early 2010s.

"We have not seen enough interest in West Fargo for us to want to try to start our own program," he said.

Midthun said a similar situation is happening with the district's dance programs, given the large number of dance studios pulling some participants away from high school competition.

The West Fargo district has the Packatahnas and the Sheyenne Mustang dance team, a co-op between Sheyenne and Horace.

"It's still a highly respected program, it's just that we have not seen the numbers," he said.

Hockey and soccer also experience the pull between club and high school teams, but in far fewer numbers than gymnastics, Fetsch said.

The Dickinson gymnastics club and high school programs have operated as one since at least the 1970s.

Guy Fridley, activities director at DHS, said former coach Kent Van Ells had a rule that if a gymnast wanted to compete with USAG, they also had to compete on the high school team.

Fridley said Casey Berry, who succeeded Van Ells after his retirement, has continued that philosophy.

"That's our expectation, and we haven't wavered from it," Fridley said.

In Dickinson, gymnasts who desire the higher club level competition usually take part in one meet early on, hopefully to get a state qualifying score, then participate in the high school season.

Following the high school state meet, they jump back into USAG meets for state and regional competitions.

In addition to winning the state high school team title again this year, Dickinson's athletes took first place in the all-around and on all of the individual events: vault, uneven bars, balance beam and floor exercise.

Fridley said with the pride that Dickinson has in its high school gymnastics program, it's worrisome to see more high school teams fall by the wayside and put its status as a high school sport in jeopardy.

"There's no doubt ... It's at that teetering point, but ... if we stay where we are right now, we're confident things will continue with gymnastics in the state of North Dakota," he said.