{"id":5817,"date":"2015-02-20T10:01:08","date_gmt":"2015-02-20T16:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/?p=5817"},"modified":"2015-02-19T01:14:47","modified_gmt":"2015-02-19T07:14:47","slug":"van-buren-harmony-talk-sharing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2015\/02\/van-buren-harmony-talk-sharing\/","title":{"rendered":"Van Buren, Harmony talk sharing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-5819\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/BonaparteSchool.jpg\" width=\"405\" height=\"304\" srcset=\"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/BonaparteSchool.jpg 405w, http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/BonaparteSchool-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 405px) 100vw, 405px\" \/><br \/>\n<em><strong>September 10, 2010:<\/strong> Cornerstone of the Bonaparte school building. Note centennial coming up.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The Harmony school district in southeast Iowa, a very early runner among non-geographic names, is exploring whole-grade sharing with Van Buren. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.heartlandconnection.com\/news\/story.aspx?id=1163998\">KTVO had a story earlier this week<\/a>. The <em>Ottumwa Courier<\/em> had a story two months ago and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ottumwacourier.com\/news\/southeast_iowa\/van-buren-harmony-talk-school-sharing\/article_5529ce75-1566-5462-ba21-b21d966e1117.html\">listed six options being considered<\/a>. That list was not exclusive to Van Buren, but all six resulted in the closure of Harmony Elementary in Bonaparte. However, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ottumwacourier.com\/news\/southeast_iowa\/sharing-still-on-the-table-for-van-buren-harmony\/article_d48af8bc-89cc-5129-8da4-44cf828e26f8.html\">more recent developments<\/a> leave the possibility of it remaining open.<\/p>\n<p>Harmony Junior-Senior High School is on J40 half a mile west of the Lee-Van Buren county line. Its elementary is in Bonaparte. Van Buren High School is in Keosauqua, Iowa&#8217;s third-smallest county seat. There&#8217;s also an elementary school in Douds-Leando very near the end of the soon-to-be-decommissioned <a href=\"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/ends\/ia98.html\">IA 98<\/a>, but <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/a\/van-burencsd.org\/file\/d\/0BwjJHSxuqxH7eUNBZ0hpcExFM2M\/edit?pli=1\">fifth and sixth grades are moving out<\/a>. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.heartlandconnection.com\/news\/story.aspx?id=594253\">Stockport was closed in 2011.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Harmony&#8217;s enrollment has declined by 20% over the past decade. Van Buren had a bump in enrollment after absorbing Fox Valley in the mid-2000s, but has declined steadily since. <a href=\"http:\/\/kilj.com\/2012\/08\/sports\/kilj-sports-august-14th-2012\/\">Harmony and Central Lee were together in football<\/a>\u00a0in 2012 and 2013 but Harmony <a href=\"http:\/\/www.metrosportsreport.com\/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=21894:cedar-valley-beats-harmony-for-1st-win&amp;catid=220:cvc-football&amp;Itemid=400\">fielded an 8-man team this year.<\/a>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.iahsaa.org\/secure\/classstandings.php?class=8\">It did not go well.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Should the two districts engage in whole-grade sharing in the future, the combined area would be the largest in Iowa with one high school.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>September 10, 2010: Cornerstone of the Bonaparte school building. Note centennial coming up. The Harmony school district in southeast Iowa, a very early runner among non-geographic names, is exploring whole-grade sharing with Van Buren. KTVO had a story earlier this &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2015\/02\/van-buren-harmony-talk-sharing\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/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-5817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-schools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5817","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=5817"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5822,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5817\/revisions\/5822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}