The school district in the central portion of Clinton County has an issue with being called…Central Clinton.
The Clinton Herald has the longer story, which was picked up by the AP. The official name is “Central Community School District of Clinton County”. The key to the grievance, apparently, is how the school name was displayed at the boys’ state basketball tournament, “CClinton”.
The district is looking at a nonexistent problem, or at least may not be trying to solve the right problem, and here’s why:
• The school was listed that way because the display at Wells Fargo Arena is limited to eight characters. At least, all my experiences there point to that limitation. It could be nine, but Tennessee was originally labeled as “Tennesse” in the 2012 NCAA Women’s Regional until I pointed that out to someone. Here would have been possible choices:
- “CClinton”, which is precisely eight characters without the space, has the county name, and as such does “recognize the district or its location” to the best extent possible;
- “C.DeWitt”, also precisely eight characters, something that may not immediately come to mind, but in retrospect may have been the optimal solution;
- “C. Clin.”, a style followed in the 2012 girls’ state tournament with North Mahaska as “N. Mah.”;
- “Central”, which may have been avoided because it doesn’t tell a neutral watcher anything about where the district is, especially since it’s in far eastern Iowa;
- “DeWitt”, which while giving a city name is not really the go-to option in this case.
- During the HS tournaments, the team names have not been used on the scoreboard.
• In Department of Education lists, the name is “Central Clinton,” which the Herald acknowledged the district has used. Central Decatur, Central Lee, and Central Lyon follow that style. “[Geographic Location] [County Name]” occurs throughout the state, often followed by “Community School District” in the formal title.
• Iowa has another county-less Central — Central Community School of Elkader. Now, why that district isn’t called Central Clayton, I’m not sure. That’s also the district that owns central.k12.ia.us, while De Witt uses www.central-csd.org. Dropping “of Clinton County” from the official De Witt name could cause more confusion.
My suggestion: Central Clinton Community School District (“of DeWitt” if necessary) for the formal name, Central Clinton for the short name. The word “County” could also be in the formal name after “Clinton” to clarify apart from the city. Note, though, that this likely would have resulted in “CClinton” on the basketball scoreboard, which is what kicked this whole thing off in the first place.