Davenport was the only school district in Iowa to add a high school in a nearly 40-year span. But if some petitioners have their way, WQAD reports, a significant portion of the district would be severed entirely.
Blue Grass, Buffalo, and Walcott line the west side of the district, and all send their kids to Davenport West High School, which is in the city about halfway between I-280 and Business US 61 (old 61). Those towns, especially Blue Grass, have benefited from exurban growth, and now some residents would like to set up the West Scott School District. Enrollment-wise, 1500 students as reported in the story would put it West Scott in the neighborhood of South Tama or Charles City. But that’s only about a tenth of Davenport’s total enrollment. A split would knock Davenport down from the third-largest district in the state to… the fifth-largest in the state.
This would be unprecedented in the modern Iowa school era — in the complete opposite way of the petition-driven attempt to dissolve Gladbrook-Reinbeck. Iowa Code has plenty to say about consolidation and dissolution, but as far as I can see, nothing about a divorce within an existing district. There is some stuff about changing boundaries, but it assumes the existence of an adjoining district, not a new one.