“On roll call, all answered aye, although Duane Bodermann of Elma hesitated before voting to close his alma mater.”
After years of debate and declining enrollment, the Howard-Winneshiek school district closed Elma Elementary at the end of last school year, leaving only a preschool.
In the briefs posted at the Lime Springs Herald online news site, the news of the closure (source of the passage at top) also indicated that Lime Springs-Chester Elementary could follow if the district continues to lose students. Ridgeway Elementary closed in 2010.
Howard-Winneshiek is the third-largest school district in the state by area. Its population is weighted toward the east half of the district in Cresco. Elma sticks out on the west end. If you drew a line straight down Kent Avenue and attached Elma to Riceville, Elma students would have a closer school and Riceville would gain some much-needed enrollment. Of course, it doesn’t work that way.
The Howard-Winn district was briefly in the news earlier this year when it was discussing a potential renaming. The junior high and high school in Cresco are named “Crestwood” rather than Howard-Winneshiek JH/HS, and the teams are Crestwood in athletics matters (see, for example, the 3A football standings, where the Cadets went 0-9).
Howard-Winn is one of only two single-high-school districts in Iowa that has a name for the high school that is not the name of the district. The other, Cherokee, has Washington High School but only applies that to the building.