In early 2016, the College Community School District (Cedar Rapids Prairie) approved a $49.5 million bond issue. This paid for multiple major construction projects on the school’s sprawling campus site on the south side of Cedar Rapids. The campus is a large area that has multiple facilities, including a K-5 building that opened in 2014.
In early 2020, the College Community School District … wants a $54 million bond issue. The Gazette reports that the district wants to build a school building solely for fifth and sixth grades that would hold nearly a thousand students. This is the equivalent of housing the entire Monticello school district – or any of the 214 smaller ones. It might sound excessive, but consider, the district’s enrollment has gone up by 2000 in the past 20 years.
All that has happened because of the district’s fortuitous placement between Cedar Rapids and Iowa City. The district’s southern part includes Johnson County north of the Iowa River to east of Shueyville. (And also Walford, but only Walford, in Benton County.) The district’s northern edge, broadly, is the township line that aligns with 29th Street SW in Cedar Rapids and east where that street meets the Cedar River to the US 151 exit. I say “broadly” because there’s one little notch that seems inconsequential, but just so happens to keep the Target and Wal-Mart on Edgewood Road SW out of Cedar Rapids Prairie and in Cedar Rapids proper. Curious, that.