The Iowa Department of Education has online the two dozen or so appeals about school closings since 1977. That year, the Iowa Department of Public Instruction created the “Barker rules”. In response to a case regarding the Van Buren school district (PDF), recommendations but not a law were put out for how a school board should proceed in closing a building.*
The recommendations became “administrative rules” in 2003 — which is how things fell apart. It’s only fitting that a procedure that mostly affects rural areas got brought down by something happening in Des Moines.
As part of a comprehensive assessment of the Des Moines school district, the school board there after multiple reviews and meetings voted in July 2005 to close a handful of buildings. Some parents and others claimed the district had not followed the Barker rules. The district said it had, and the Board of Education sided with it. The parents/community members then went to court, which culminated in an Iowa Supreme Court ruling (PDF) on July 31, 2009.
Not only did the court uphold the building closures, it ruled that “legislative authorization for the ISBE’s adoption of rules prescribing the procedure school districts must follow in making school closing decisions is noticeably absent in the Code.” (Wallace v. Iowa State Board of Education, 07-0943, p.8) The board had made an “erroneous interpretation of the statues” and “[a]ccordingly, the rules are void.” (p.9)
Since then, the Department of Education still encourages districts to follow the Barker rules, but they are not required. Once a local school board has made its decision, there isn’t much recourse left.
*The Barker ruling is about the only time the state overruled the school district with actual consequences. The board said Sutherland was wrong in closing Calumet in 1984, but by the time that happened it was too late.