June 24, 2017: The Wall Lake school complex embodies the structure repeated in so many towns in Iowa in the 20th century: A pre-Depression symmetrical brick structure (seen above), a gymnasium (1952), and an addition built in the 1960s.
This is, perhaps, the first time I’ve found out about a school closure via tweet.
As Grand Island Northwest weighs shutting down Chapman School, there's a vote to close my own elementary school back in Iowa tonight as well. pic.twitter.com/WFX0COpv7M
— Sara Kirkley (@NTVsSaraKirkley) February 10, 2020
After some pondering, I figured out the location in question: Wall Lake in western Iowa. This story from KCIM-AM confirms it.
The East Sac school district will be closing two buildings in the next two years. The K-4 building in Wall Lake is one. The middle school in Sac City, the original Sac City High School, is the other. From the Feb. 10 school board minutes:
Supt. Kruse recommended that in order to get to a two building configuration of PK-6 at SES and 7-12 at the high school as approved last month, that the Wall Lake elementary close June 30, 2020 and the middle school close June 30, 2021 pending completion of necessary construction. Wilhelm moved to approve the recommendation as presented, Jansma seconded. Mahler-aye, Kluver-aye, Stoltenberg-nay, Jansma-aye, Wilhelm-aye. Motion carried 4-1.
Sac City will continue to have a school, the newer one on the edge of town on M54. (And by “newer” I mean “the one built in the 1980s”.) But the building in the middle of town, currently in use as East Sac County Middle School, will close after the school year after this one.
Sac City is one of four county seats that does not have a high school. The other three are Dakota City, Toledo, and Allison, but those first two border another city (Humboldt/Tama) that has the high school.