Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

When the Iowa Department of Education released enrollment numbers for the 2018-19 school year, it announced: “For the eighth year in a row, the number of students attending Iowa’s public schools increased.” Strictly speaking, that’s true. But as long-time blog readers know, that’s not the story.

The story is this: Overall public student enrollment is about 2640 higher in 2018-19 than in 2003-04. But enrollment in the entire state minus two districts is down by more than 10,500 in those 15 years.

Once again, Ankeny and Waukee mask the magnitude of the decline in student enrollment in rural Iowa. This year, the entire enrollment of Calamus-Wheatland moved to Ankeny, while Waukee plugged a Starmont’s worth of students into a one-high-school district now larger than Waterloo.

Fifteen years ago, those two accounted for 2.1% of the state’s total enrollment; now they make up for 4.8%. That’s a huge increase. For comparison, Cedar Rapids, the second-largest district in the state, accounts for just under 3.5%.

There are 24 districts with a certified enrollment under 250; 11 will graduate seniors this year, including the smallest, Diagonal.

Scaled on the four most recent school years:

• Two school districts grew by more than 20 percent. (By the codes it’s six but four are consolidations.) One is Gilmore City-Bradgate, a misleader given the tiny numbers (109 to 161). But the other is Clear Creek Amana, which added the equivalent of Colo-NESCO.
• 17 fell by more than 10 percent. Laurens-Marathon was the worst hit and gave up its high school in the middle of this period.
• Using current district configurations, 156 increased, 173 decreased, and one zeroed out (Villisca, currently sharing with Corning).
• North Tama’s enrollment ticked down slightly, but Gladbrook-Reinbeck’s is surprisingly steady after closure of the Gladbrook building led to a dissolution vote that did not succeed.

Related blog post: Iowa’s largest enrollment gainers, 2001-2015

In what I believe is the fifth such arrangement of its kind, the Olin school district is going to give students in grades 7-12 their choice of school to attend.

The Anamosa Journal-Eureka reports that the Olin board was to vote on ratifying an arrangement with Midland on Jan. 28. I have not seen any follow-up stories on this yet.

Olin gave up its high school in 2012 and has been sending all students to Anamosa. But starting next school year, the Midland school district will have the same whole-grade-sharing terms. The school in Wyoming is slightly closer and much smaller than Anamosa, so families will be able to decide what kind of experience they want their kids to have. (Could be worth a study, even.)

Ankeny is preparing to add a third high school in the early 2030s, the Des Moines Register reported last month — and Waukee may not be far behind.

The two districts in Iowa that, between them, seem to be opening at least one building every year expect to continue at the pace that 320 others would sacrifice a harvest for. In fact, according to the article, Ankeny RIGHT NOW is the largest district in the state only operating two high schools!

The wag in me suggests that Ankeny could get its third high school by engineering a hostile takeover of Saydel to the south, but that would be silly. Besides, if you look at the more recent maps, Ankeny city annexation has studiously avoided much of that area.