Previously, I explored how the northeast Iowa town of Fayette appeared to be the only town in the country that had a graduate degree program but not a high school.
But as of last year, Fayette joined Peru, Nebraska, as a second town in the United States that has a four-year institution of higher education but no school at all.
According to a February 2023 article in the Oelwein Daily Register, the North Fayette Valley school district closed Fayette Elementary, which had held fourth- and fifth-graders from the pre-merger North Fayette area. Elementaries in West Union and Valley (between Clermont and Elgin) each have grades PK-3, all fourth-graders are at Valley, and fifth-graders are in the middle school.
A follow-up article last January said the Fayette school site is being converted into apartments by the same people who converted the Quasqueton school.
I personally think fifth grade is too young for middle school, and sixth for that matter. That’s at least somewhat what Interstate 35 schools announced in March, realigning its large singular complex in Truro to have the elementary portion have grades K-6 and the secondary portion have grades 7-12. I-35 also has its students change classrooms for subjects starting in second grade, and as a former second-grader I think that’s too young too.