Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

July 21, 2015: Architectural elements of Radcliffe’s 1915 school building were preserved when the building was torn down. Currently, Radcliffe Elementary is used for Hubbard-Radlcliffe grades K-5.

KLMJ Radio and the Iowa Falls Times-Citizen have both reported that Eldora-New Providence and Hubbard-Radcliffe have extended their whole-grade sharing agreement through 2024. That means Iowa’s current oldest traditional multi-grade bidirectional sharing agreement will reach a decade and a half. (I say “traditional” because Iowa Falls is only sending one grade to Alden, and ending that in 2017, and because the North Kossuth/Armstrong-Ringsted/Sentral sharing tripleheader has resulted in the latter two merging since.)

The Times-Citizen said there was no interest in consolidation because of “upheaval within their districts.” I don’t know what that refers to, but I suspect it could be because Hubbard and Radcliffe feel it’s the best way to make sure both of their towns have schools (especially Radcliffe). In fact, Hubbard tore down its original building and replaced it with a new one just a couple years ago. The giant new gym, though, doesn’t look like it takes the place of the 1940 one for games, since there are no bleachers.

October 3, 2016: Beautiful architectural detail on the Mallard school building, which you can see is celebrating its centennial this year.

Three years ago, the West Bend-Mallard school board discussed the future of the Mallard school building. At that time, as reported in the Emmetsburg News, the board voted in favor of a motion that set triggers for the building’s closure. One of them was a drop in certified enrollment below 320 — and this year, Mallard fell just below that level. This past October, the WBM board voted in favor of keeping the building open another year.

In February, the WBM district had a hearing on bids to build a new facility in West Bend. “We are not doing this to close the Mallard facility, but we’re looking out into the future if we ever need to close the Mallard facility,” the superintendent told the Algona Upper Des Moines. The key word there, of course, is IF. KICD Radio says the new building would be complete in April 2018….which would be just in time to close Mallard that spring. An August 2015 story from KLGA Radio said, “The building would house athletic facilities, freeing up space in the regular school structure.” But any intense renovation (say, dividing the existing gym into classrooms?) would take another year at least. That website stopped updating the first day of summer 2016, apparently replaced with a new location that has a limited backlist of stories.

WBM is in one of the geographically stranger sharing arrangements in Iowa. Thanks to a quarter-mile border shared at the Des Moines River, Gilmore City-Bradgate is sending grades 7-12 to West Bend. That means West Bend covers upper grades from the Humboldt/Webster/Pocahontas county corner up to the west US 18/IA 15 intersection, including Rodman and Pioneer in addition to the towns named in the respective districts (but not Curlew, Whittemore, or Ottosen, all of which are just outside). But since Mallard is only used for WBM elementary students, that arrangement doesn’t benefit it at all.

Why yes, I am pleased with myself for that headline.