In the fall of 2025, a new Bellevue Elementary opened. It’s near the junior high/high school building and holds grades 3-5. The new building — which, based on one video from near its completion, is exceptionally beige for grades 3-5 — is designed to have a future school building attach to it.
However, there is no timetable for any construction of that building for students in preschool through second grade. It took three bond referendum votes to reach supermajority for this one.
That means, for the near-term future, the oldest active school building in Iowa is in Bellevue — built in 1848 as the Jackson County Courthouse and used a school since 1861.