Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

AHST and Walnut overwhelmingly approved consolidation Tuesday, multiple sources report (Register/AP, Nonpareil). Also in southwest Iowa, Fremont-Mills approved a bond issue, but it’s about the only winner this week. Throughout the state, other bond issues not only failed to reach a supermajority but outright lost. Among them were Monticello, Okoboji, Sergeant Bluff-Luton, East Buchanan, and Highland — the last was the one that would have closed the school buildings in Ainsworth and Riverside. Akron-Westfield had a majority but needed a supermajority (as was the case in Cedar Falls a few months ago). KMEG says the A-W margin was 22 votes.

The failure of a PPEL vote in Farragut, though, may be the most important of all of Tuesday’s votes. As a PPEL (Physical Plant and Equipment Levy) rather than a bond issue it only needed half plus one, but lost by nine votes. Farragut must have certain renovations/additions completed in order to be in ADA compliance and keep its state accreditation. It’s under a conditional accreditation this school year. This is after the merger vote with Hamburg failed, so Farragut (and really, both districts) are dancing on the line between existence and forced dissolution. The Department of Education may not want to drop the hammer, but after what happened to Russell, you can’t say it won’t.

PS: That Adam Haluska?

The Marcus-Meriden-Cleghorn and Remsen-Union school boards Sept. 2 gave the second approval for a whole-grade-sharing agreement starting in 2016, KTIV reports. Marcus gets the high school, Remsen gets grades 5-8, each keep their own elementaries. The story says that in November, there will be suggestions taken on a new name and mascot.

I hope the new district name, if they don’t just combine the existing ones and form RUMMC, won’t be something vague and non-geographic, but this one will be tricky since the districts span two counties and no geographic features stand out. (I’m putting R-U first as an olive branch since that’s the district losing the high school.)

Since a whole new mascot has to be picked (and Iowa loses another school nicknamed the Rockets), how about Lions? We have lots of Tigers but comparatively few Lions.

The Harmony Rockets are being taken off the launch pad.

The school district in eastern Van Buren County, whose high school is not in the town of Farmington but at the intersection of J40 and W46 along the Henry County line, will send grades 7-12 to Van Buren in Keosauqua in 2016. According to the Keokuk Daily Gate City, Harmony Elementary in Bonaparte will close and those students will go to the high school building.

Van Buren County will become the eighth county in Iowa to have only one high school in its borders. That number has doubled in the past decade, and more counties only have two high schools. The two districts together, about 520 square miles, will be the third-largest one-high-school area in Iowa, bigger than the Davis County district to its west.

That means this is the last season for Harmony sports. In football, after sharing two years with Central Lee, Harmony revived its own 8-player team last year, only to be outscored 568-104 in a winless season. The Rockets have already been routed once this season.

I believe there will only be two three Iowa high schools left with a nickname of Rockets: Eddyville-Blakesburg-Fremont, Paton-Churdan (which shares football with Greene County but has other sports itself), and Remsen-Union (which won’t be for long). In a roundabout way, this could be considered a sign of the fading of the Space Age.

Just over the border, in Missouri, the Gorin elementary district ceased to exist July 1, sending all its students to the county seat of Memphis.

UPDATE/CORRECTION: Omitted Remsen-Union.