January 27, 2011: Prescott school building.
Prescott Elementary in southwest Iowa dismisses its last students today, after a century of educating students in a stately brick building on the north side of town. Next school year, everyone will be “tuitioned in” to Creston. The districts cannot consolidate this calendar year because the election was held this calendar year. (This Creston News-Advertiser article is a year off.)
This means Prescott will be a zombie district in 2015-16. It exists, yet for all intents and purposes it is dead. It will educate no students. Titonka was a zombie district in 2013-14 when it sent all students to Algona rather than keep kindergarten through fourth grade.
(If no one has used the phrase “zombie district” before, I am claiming coinage.)
The Facebook post from the Prescott school (it’s from the superintendent, so I’ll count it as a valid source), emphasizes that Creston’s full name is Creston Community School District. This use of the word “Community” is intended to encompass a greater area (i.e. be a bone thrown to the towns losing out). The most prominent example beyond the city level is Benton Community (instead of Benton County or South Benton), a multiple-district merger that went all the way to the Iowa Supreme Court in the 1960s.