Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

A case earlier this school year where a public school district refused to sell a closed building to a private school led to a bill late in the first part of the Iowa legislative session. That bill mandated that if a private school is the highest bidder for a closed school building, the public school district must sell it to the private school. That language was later incorporated into Senate File 2368, which dealt heavily with charter schools and was signed into law at a charter school.

Unlike many other recent bills, however, it was not declared “of immediate importance” and thus is to take effect July 1.

That gave the Cedar Rapids school district just enough time to avoid being forced to sell Garfield Elementary School to Isaac Newton Christian Academy. Instead, the district accepted a bid from a real estate developer half the size of Isaac Newton’s.

Cedar Rapids schools’ chief financial officer said at the June 24 board meeting, as reported by KCRG, “a loss of $1.5 million from our general fund was attributed to the 196 students choosing Isaac Newton Christian Academy.”

My Substack piece looks at the history of the Goldfield school building and neighboring Boone Valley school district. It takes in the building’s current state as an alumna tours the building. Of course Mom recorded everything.

The Orient-Macksburg school district in southwest Iowa will cease to exist at the end of the 2024-25 school year. The district made the decision Monday.

WOI, KCCI, and Iowa Starting Line all have stories. The last goes into the most detail. However, the latter two need a correction/clarification: Only voters in the dissolving district vote on its dissolution. A soon-to-be-appointed dissolution commission will get in communication with neighboring school boards on what areas the surrounding district would be willing to take. The commission will also take residents/property owners’ input and then draw lines. See Iowa Code chapter 275.53 and 275.55.

If the attempted Gladbrook-Reinbeck dissolution is any example — and given its circumstances, it may not — the school boards will be in favor of whatever land OM will offer. North Tama’s letter said it would work with GR and AEA 267 “to reach an appropriate solution.”

If Clearfield’s dissolution is any example — and I really hope it isn’t — residents of OM will want to go every which way and create a crazy quilt.

Right now, the Winterset and Nodaway Valley districts do not spill out of their county lines at all. If they did, that could cause administrative headaches, including extra ballot styles created for just those outlying portions in elections. Those boards could specify that they do not want anything outside their counties. Orphaned land, should there be any — and in the modern era, I don’t think there has been — would be the state’s responsibility to figure out.

The last district to dissolve was Corwith-Wesley in 2015, but 87% of the school territory went to LuVerne and CWL had been together for decades. No district in the modern era has voluntarily dissolved in the summer following its last high school graduation; Boone Valley came close, shutting down one year after its last senior class. Russell and Hedrick were both forcibly shut down by the state over funding issues.