{"id":9913,"date":"2018-05-08T10:00:59","date_gmt":"2018-05-08T15:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/?p=9913"},"modified":"2018-05-05T01:51:41","modified_gmt":"2018-05-05T06:51:41","slug":"plainfield-school-will-close","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2018\/05\/plainfield-school-will-close\/","title":{"rendered":"Plainfield school will close"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A crude metric for your place in the school ecosystem is as follows: If your district has been losing about 10 students every year for a decade, is it a rounding error, something to monitor carefully and attempt to remedy, or a cause for deep concern if not outright panic?<\/p>\n<p>For too many districts in Iowa, it&#8217;s door number three. Plainfield will lose its school at the end of the month, <a href=\"http:\/\/nhtrib.com\/news\/board-votes-close-plainfield-building\">reports the <\/a><em><a href=\"http:\/\/nhtrib.com\/news\/board-votes-close-plainfield-building\">New Hampton Tribune\/Nashua Reporter<\/a>. <\/em>Grades 4-6 will go to the elementary or junior high\/high school buildings that are next to each other in Nashua.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-9914\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/GR_NP_enrollment.png\" width=\"372\" height=\"373\" srcset=\"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/GR_NP_enrollment.png 372w, http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/GR_NP_enrollment-150x150.png 150w, http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/GR_NP_enrollment-300x300.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 372px) 100vw, 372px\" \/><br \/>\n<em>Certified enrollment. Note Y-axis starts at 500.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Since 2000, Nashua-Plainfield&#8217;s plunge has been uncannily similar to Gladbrook-Reinbeck&#8217;s.\u00a0They each had a certified enrollment around 850 in 2000, and today sit at 613 and 585, respectively. And we know <a href=\"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2015\/02\/gladbrook-elementary-school-closing\/\">what happened<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2017\/07\/gladbrook-reinbeck-dissolution-debate-and-the-national-mood\/\">in Gladbrook.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nhtrib.com\/news\/n-p-school-board-makes-progress-budget-reductions\">murmurs about Plainfield began in March<\/a> and once you get to that stage it&#8217;s nearly impossible to get a reversal in course. It&#8217;s only happened once that I&#8217;m aware of, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wowt.com\/content\/news\/Crescent-wants-to-increase-enrollment-to-keep-school-open-419604913.html\">in Crescent<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I realize that the opening is something of a trick question because any school that loses 10 students loses about $66,640, which will cover a teacher&#8217;s salary. But only <a href=\"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2016\/06\/map-of-iowa-school-enrollment-changes-2001-2015\/\">one-fifth of school boards in Iowa<\/a> aren&#8217;t metaphorically up at night worrying about this to some extent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A crude metric for your place in the school ecosystem is as follows: If your district has been losing about 10 students every year for a decade, is it a rounding error, something to monitor carefully and attempt to remedy, &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2018\/05\/plainfield-school-will-close\/\">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-9913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-schools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9913","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=9913"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9913\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9924,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9913\/revisions\/9924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}