{"id":4469,"date":"2014-02-04T12:29:27","date_gmt":"2014-02-04T18:29:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/?p=4469"},"modified":"2014-02-04T12:29:27","modified_gmt":"2014-02-04T18:29:27","slug":"prairie-valley-se-webster-grand-on-track-to-create-states-second-largest-district","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2014\/02\/prairie-valley-se-webster-grand-on-track-to-create-states-second-largest-district\/","title":{"rendered":"Prairie Valley, SE Webster-Grand on track to create state’s second-largest district"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"OLYMPUS
\nJuly 25, 2012:<\/strong> This new landscaping at the Boxholm school addition may not have students enjoying it for long. The main building was constructed in 1916.<\/em><\/p>\n

When the football district assignments came out, I noticed that Southeast Webster-Grand wasn’t listed anywhere. Now here’s the reason why: The school district will be starting whole-grade sharing with Prairie Valley of Gowrie<\/a> next fall. The schools have entered into a five-year deal.<\/p>\n

Prairie Valley’s enrollment has plunged since the turn of the century, from 850 students to under 600, and the school in Callender was closed. SEW-G has had ups and downs but leveled around 540. A combined district would have an enrollment in the top third of the state, but more notably, cover 500 square miles<\/strong>\u00a0(499.2, to be exact). It would pass Davis County as the largest district with one high school and trail only Western Dubuque overall in the state. Technically, this would not happen until a consolidation vote, but for the next five years, this area of southern Webster County plus northwestern Boone and far eastern Calhoun counties will <\/em>be the largest served by only one high school.<\/p>\n

According to the information on PV’s website, grades 9-12 will be in Gowrie and 5-8 will be in Burnside<\/a> (SEW-G’s high school). Elementary schools will be kept in Farnhamville and Dayton. That leaves Boxholm, in northwest Boone County, as the odd building out. It has 112 students this year.<\/a>\u00a0Its age may be a factor, as it’s one of the many but dwindling 1910s schools in use in Iowa, but it’s in the very southern part of its district. I should note I didn’t see anything specific in board minutes about the closing of this building, but it seems obvious.<\/p>\n

The superintendent’s announcement* says “Student leaders from each district will be meeting to develop a name, mascot, and colors for the shared activity programs.” PV-SEW is an option. A name of “South Webster” would cover most of the territory but also be a double-whammy to Boxholm, Pilot Mound, and Fraser after losing the last Boone County building. Since one district name involved has already gone from geographic to generic, there may be a greater chance the new one won’t have a recognizable geographic marker either. Personally, I’m always in favor of geography if it can be made to work.<\/p>\n

The Prairie Valley Warriors and Southeast Webster-Grand Eagles have played their last football games. We’ll have to wait and see what team takes the field in fall.<\/p>\n

*Uploaded as a Word document, which should not be a file type used for the Web.<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

July 25, 2012: This new landscaping at the Boxholm school addition may not have students enjoying it for long. The main building was constructed in 1916. When the football district assignments came out, I noticed that Southeast Webster-Grand wasn’t listed … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-schools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4469","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=4469"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4473,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4469\/revisions\/4473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}