Two stateline school reorganizations that were essentially pro forma votes were approved last Tuesday. Both will take effect in fall 2019.
North Winneshiek and Decorah approved consolidation (Radio Iowa), or more accurately, North Winneshiek finished the endgame it planned out when insufficient state funding increases, declining enrollment, and increasing transportation costs put it in an impossible situation. North Winn has the highest student transportation costs in Iowa because, well, it’s in Winneshiek County. The Iowa House is going to try (again) to equalize transportation funding statewide, something North Winn’s superintendent told the Des Moines Register might have bailed out the district.
Van Buren and Harmony (AP via Newton Daily News) also approved consolidation. This one’s a little closer enrollment-wise, about 2-to-1.
Unrelated to the votes, but maybe tangentially interesting, IA 11 ran through these areas in the early 1920s, long before the modern school system in Iowa.
Finally, also last Tuesday, Easton Valley got a majority but not a supermajority on a bond issue for the second time in a year (KWQC).