{"id":15461,"date":"2024-04-01T10:00:55","date_gmt":"2024-04-01T15:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/?p=15461"},"modified":"2024-04-01T01:34:53","modified_gmt":"2024-04-01T06:34:53","slug":"hills-elementary-to-close","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2024\/04\/hills-elementary-to-close\/","title":{"rendered":"Hills Elementary to close"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It was pretty much guaranteed to happen as soon as it was announced: The Iowa City school district is shutting down Hills Elementary. Stories: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thegazette.com\/k\/hills-elementary-to-close-at-the-end-of-the-school-year-iowa-city-school-board-decides\/\"><em>Gazette<\/em><\/a>, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/dailyiowan.com\/2024\/03\/26\/iowa-city-school-board-votes-to-close-hills-elementary-to-save-1-6-million\/\">Daily Iowan<\/a><\/em>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kcrg.com\/2024\/03\/27\/iowa-city-school-board-votes-close-hills-elementary-end-school-year\/\">KCRG<\/a>\u00a0(autoplay), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kwwl.com\/video\/iowa-city-community-school-board-votes-to-close-hills-elementary-school\/video_1543e747-caa1-5003-a3f3-84bfca95c1b1.html\">KWWL<\/a> (video only),<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/iowastartingline.com\/2024\/03\/27\/iowa-city-closing-an-elementary-school-blames-underfunding-from-state\/\">Iowa Starting Line has<\/a> a copy of the packet from the <a href=\"https:\/\/go.boarddocs.com\/ia\/iccsd\/Board.nsf\/files\/D33S996F9D0B\/$file\/3_5_24_Financial%20Oversight%20Meeting%20.pdf\">March 5 school board meeting<\/a>, which directly and explicitly blames private school vouchers and insufficient state aid for the need to fill a multimillion-dollar budget deficit. The district has needed to cut $24.7 million over two school years, and Hills accounts for $1.66 million of the remaining $3.75 million needed.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2024\/03\/hills-could-lose-its-school\/\">On March 1, I mentioned<\/a> that the Hills school was built the year before the town was attached to the Iowa City district. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kcrg.com\/video\/2024\/03\/28\/day-after-iowa-city-school-board-voted-close-hills-elementary-school-community-members-say-they-want-building-land-back\/\">KCRG has a story saying<\/a> that the town sold the building to the city for $1 then, and would buy it back for the same price, adjusted for inflation.<\/p>\n<p>Enrollment in the Iowa City district dropped in 2020-21, but there was a notable drop in the overall statewide total then, and it&#8217;s pretty much back to where it was. If Iowa City and Linn-Mar, two growing and property-tax-rich school districts, are having to make cuts, what does that say about the rest of the state?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It was pretty much guaranteed to happen as soon as it was announced: The Iowa City school district is shutting down Hills Elementary. Stories: Gazette, Daily Iowan, KCRG\u00a0(autoplay), KWWL (video only), Iowa Starting Line has a copy of the packet &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2024\/04\/hills-elementary-to-close\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-schools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15461"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15462,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15461\/revisions\/15462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}