While double-checking the years of some entries, it became evident that more schools than I thought became a K-6 or K-8 while sending everyone else to one or more other districts, but not receiving any students in return.
In light of that, I added a new category in the timeline: “Last year for high school”. In these cases, the district did not dissolve or merge or enter a grade-sharing agreement, but did graduate its last class. For example, Andrew fell into this category in 2010-11.
I also got a bunch of semi-detailed information about the past 25 years in a report posted online (PDF) related to the merger of Pocahontas Area and Pomeroy-Palmer. I say “semi-detailed” because it appears more statistics were in the appendixes – which aren’t included online. It also resulted in a correction to the status of the building in Rolfe – it was a middle school until 2004, when it was closed in March because bricks were falling off the 1917 building.
From the report, I also learned answers to some long-standing questions:
- Corwith-Wesley and LuVerne were the first districts to engage in whole-grade sharing, doing so by 1984-85. They’re still at it.
- The largest school district by area with one high school is Davis County, 468 square miles. The largest district in Iowa is Western Dubuque (555), but this is a two-high-school district, because it also includes Cascade.
- In 1969, the peak year of Iowa school enrollment, Dysart-Geneseo had 835 students. That district, created in 1966, is by a significant margin the largest 1969-enrollment district that doesn’t have its own high school anymore. As late as 2000, the disparity between it and the next district in that situation was even greater.
- And this isn’t from the report, but important nonetheless: When 16 districts officially became eight July 1, the number of districts lost since 1965 surpassed 100. (1965-66: 458; 2011-12: 353)
Finally, I’ve filled in the official-reorganization lines going back to 1985-86. Many details from the late ’80s and early ’90s, however, have yet to be filled in.