The Remsen-Union and Marcus-Meriden-Cleghorn school districts were in talks for whole-grade sharing, but ended them over disagreement on which town would get the high school. Now, after a short period of finding out the alternatives aren’t very good, the districts came to an agreement for 2016, report Radio Iowa, the Sioux City Journal and KTIV.
Marcus, despite having the smaller population, won the debate and will serve grades 9-12. Remsen, with grades 5-8, will become the one of the ten largest non-suburbs in Iowa without a high school. (It’s difficult to rank exactly because the list has towns that aren’t quite suburbs but are near metro areas, and Toledo is a special case because South Tama High School is on its doorstep.) Each district will have K-4 sections (remember, MMC just closed Cleghorn).
The combined area of the two districts will result in the 12th single-high-school area in Iowa larger than 400 square miles, and the ninth that size created just since 2009, when Pocahontas Area and Pomeroy-Palmer began sharing.