The below is what happens when you sit on a post too long and it gets overtaken by events. — Ed.
The dissolution (not “dissolvement”) of the Orient-Macksburg school district is proceeding mostly as I expected, with a catch that I wondered about but never stated, followed by another, much more troublesome twist.
The catch is, all changes to a school district’s area, including consolidation and dissolution, must be approved in the calendar year before it takes effect. That means a vote in March 2025 would not take effect until July 1, 2026, and O-M is in such deep a hole it can’t hold on that long.
The state calendar on elections requires that this vote happen Sept. 10 — the second Tuesday of the month. That means O-M “gets one shot” at its own plan, as a committee member said in the Creston News-Advertiser story, before the state takes over.
The above was written two weeks ago. Now that shot is gone.
The O-M dissolution committee told residents on Monday that because both Creston and Winterset objected to the proposed map, a Sept. 10 vote is out of the question, reports the Creston News-Advertiser. The map gave only minimal portions of O-M to those other districts, leaving the vast majority to merge with Nodaway Valley. That would be much less than the districts wanted.
Those lines, as drawn, would not have permitted a bus from Creston to reach Orient to pick up open-enrolled students as the town would be too deep into Nodaway Valley territory. Legally, the response to that is — or at least would be expected to be — “tough beans”. However, because the objections are there, even though they are invalid objections (based on my interpretation of a quote in the story), a dissolution vote cannot proceed.
Without a September vote, the Orient-Macksburg school district must exist in the 2025-26 school year, even if only on paper.
