Gladbrook-Reinbeck is considering reducing its school facilities, and closing the K-8 building in Gladbrook is one option, reports the Waterloo Courier. The others involve rearranging grades between the two towns but all put all of a grade’s students in one place.
With just under 600 students this year, G-R is about the median-sized district in the state — but that’s 100 fewer than in 2008, and 250 fewer than in 2000. Gladbrook’s foray above the 1000-population threshold ended before the 2010 census.
A school closure would be the first in Tama County since South Tama brought elementary classes to a new building southwest of the high school in 2006 and closed Chelsea in 2008.
My guess is the football field would remain on the northwest side of Gladbrook, by the Tama County Fairgrounds, since new locker rooms were built there recently.
Even closer to home, North Tama Superintendent Bob Cue wrote a guest column for the Cedar Rapids Gazette and a letter to The Des Moines Register about school funding. How G-R goes about dealing with its financial and enrollment shortfalls could have an effect on North Tama, which shares a long border.