Essex, Iowa’s fourth-smallest district operating a high school, is telling parents it faces a “challenging dilemma.”
KMA reported on a Jan. 26 meeting where Superintendent Paul Croghan said it was time to start looking at whole-grade-sharing options with neighboring districts. All of them except Stanton (the second-smallest district operating a high school, and geographically not a great fit) are much larger. Croghan pointed out the area’s continued population decline:
“But, you just look–in the last 10 years, when we were competing for those banners, there was a Farragut banner, a Nishna Valley, a Villisca, a Malvern, and a Hamburg. That’s five schools in our conference alone, in 10 years, that no long graduate kids.”
The members of the Corner Conference know exactly what it means when the state comes knocking, after the Farragut district got nuked in 2015-16. Essex isn’t there right now, but the enrollment projections aren’t good.
Between 1958 and 1963, Essex tried repeatedly to consolidate with the even smaller town of Coburg just to the north, only for plans to be torpedoed by either a court or the state. A reorganization without Coburg was approved in 1964. Coburg was attached to Red Oak three years later, according to this court case, although it’s not on the official list of post-1965 changes.