A column by Iowa Writers’ Collaborative member Cheryl Tevis has some photos of schools in her area: Boxholm, Pilot Mound, and Paton (the last just some bricks forming a monument to itself).
The column covers many school-related bills still active in the Legislature, and it piqued my interest on many fronts, but I’m going to focus on one.
Tevis wrote that state Sen. Jesse Green of Boone is pushing a bill that “would require the sale to a private school — if the private school is the highest bidder.” Tevis also wrote that at a public forum in Jefferson, Green said that “he had learned of a public school near Cedar Falls refusing to sell its building.”
I scratched my head trying to think of a school facility currently on the market around the area, and came up empty rural-wise. I soon found the answer: In December the Waverly-Shell Rock school board refused to sell one of its soon-to-close elementaries to an organization that wants to put a private school in Waverly.
The Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier reported that the board had rejected a $70,000 bid from a group called Inspired Life while continuing to consider much smaller bids for either a community center or low-income housing.
In Green’s Jan. 26 newsletter, which Tevis referenced, he said, “I have heard reports that some public schools are refusing to sell their old buildings to existing accredited private schools for no good reasons and they would rather tear the buildings down than see another school use it.”
Senate File 2333, approved by the State Government Committee on Valentine’s Day, breaks the heart of those who think a school should make the ultimate decision on what to do with properties it no longer has a need for. As Tevis said, it requires a public school to sell property to a private school if the private school is the highest bidder. It also bans any attempt by a political subdivision to ban school buildings from being sold to private schools. (Yes, a ban on banning something.)
If Green is referring to the Waverly case, he’s incorrect that the district would rather tear down the building — at least, not as of two months ago. He’s also incorrect that there isn’t a good reason.
“Every school dollar now, with the new (education savings accounts), goes away from the public school, and we are a public school,” Jen Kettleson said in the Courier story. “But we need to protect the school that we’re a part of.”
The Legislature, by the way, missed the deadline to set public school supplemental aid funding, although there is now a bill in the House with a 3% increase.
