Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

The Benton Community School District, one of a declining number of districts operating sites in more than two towns, is proposing to centralize most of its elementary students.

A $48.5 million bond referendum to be voted on in March covers construction of a new PK-6 building in Van Horne. This would be more than a replacement for the elementary building that closed in 2015. In coached language, the district says, “Depending on growth projections, it is the district’s intent upon opening of the new school for students attending or expected to attend Keystone Elementary and Norway Intermediate to instead attend the new elementary school.”

Based on an animated diagram on the school’s bond issue webpage, almost all K-3 students would go to this new school, and all 4-6 students. Atkins Elementary, on the growing side of the district, would remain and serve grades K-3 for the Atkins and Newhall areas. It would also get some benefits from the bond issue.

Keystone’s gym was built in 1938 (seen at the 57-second mark in this video), and the school in 1983. The oldest part of Norway’s school is from 1956 (on the fourth try) with another part from 1962. If the Van Horne elementary is built, those two schools would close in 2026 — the 35th anniversary of Norway losing its high school and sharing with Benton.

Benton’s bond referendum is scheduled for March 7. Other school districts having bond issue votes for facility improvements/additions include North Tama, Bettendorf, Calamus-Wheatland, Cedar Rapids, Charles City, Corning (but not Villisca), Durant, Iowa Valley, Solon, and South O’Brien. Nashua-Plainfield wants to build a baseball/softball complex at the site of the now-demolished Plainfield school; currently N-P plays softball there.

Two bills in the Iowa Legislature propose substantial alterations to the bond referendum process. Senate File 49 would restrict future bond issue votes to the regular November odd-year city/school elections, drastically slowing down the process. Currently, there are five open dates in a two-year cycle. Just last year, Creston tried twice and failed twice.

House File 1 would require public school districts to put in a 10% down payment before the bond is even voted on. If either or both laws pass, any referendum that fails March 7 would have a much steeper and longer hill to climb.

In my 2014 Des Moines Register column about Manilla’s school, I invoked the evolution of a “typical” school complex in small-town Iowa. At the core, you have a two- or three-story symmetrical brick structure from 1913-28. An elementary wing comes in the late 1950s or early 1960s, along with a gymnasium if there’s not one from the ’30s. More ancillary rooms or areas — or a replacement of the original structure — are built in the 1980s and 1990s. To all this I would add one more round of additions and extensions from the 2010s, often built with Physical Plant and Equipment Levy money, that may have come at the cost of the smallest town in the district that still had a school losing it.

In a few places, there wasn’t an elementary wing attached to an existing site, but a whole new structure in the middle of nowhere. I have found at least three from the 1950s: Scott Township, southeast of Winterset; Pymosa, northwest of Atlantic; and East River, southeast of Clarinda.

The 10-room East River Township school opened in 1956 after a bond issue for $65,000. It was built on the site of “Thompson School No. 5,” at the intersection of blacktopped County Road N14 and 240th Street.

East River opposed area reorganization in early 1959, while in August the consolidated South Page school district opened for its first year. Clarinda followed in 1960. It was the Iowa Legislature’s K-12 decree that spelled the end of East River. In 1966, nearly all of the non-high-school district became part of Clarinda. Grades 3-6 of Garfield Elementary School went to East River.

In the winter of the 1967-68 school year, in preparation for opening a new junior high building, Clarinda decided to close East River and engage in a district-wide redistribution of students. About 60% of the student body, 900 kids in all, went to a different building in the fall of 1968 than they had in 1967.

In May 1970, the Clarinda school board voted to demolish the East River school building. Iowa law requires that rural land used for schools revert to the previous owner when the land no longer serves that purpose. The building was stripped and the steel was salvaged.

There was still $12,000 left in debt to be paid on a structure that did not last 15 years. Part of its concrete floor remains on a space now housing four grain bins.

Clarinda Herald-Journal stories used for this blog post:

• “Propose $65,000 East River Twp school,” 11/3/55
• “East River school board turns thumbs down on reorganization,” 3/12/59
• “South Page schools to open first year of merger Aug. 31st,” 8/6/59
• “East River area divided among three districts,” 7/18/66
• “Special areas expand in Clarinda’s schools,” 8/15/66
• “Board considers future for East River building,” 11/16/67
• “900 in new building on first day of school,” 8/26/68
• “East River school building to be demolished in summer,” 5/21/70