Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

The state’s annual Condition of Education Report (PDF) was issued last week and has plenty of statistics. One being brought up often in news articles is the increased number of minority students, although if you look in the charts (p. 11) the percentage is much higher in the state’s 11 largest districts (enrollment 7500-plus).

Here are two other notable statistics that, along with the one above, says more about the condition of overall enrollment:

• At the beginning and end of a 25-year period, from 1988-89 to 2013-14, public school enrollment increased less than one-half of 1 percent (476,771 to 478,921). (p. 3)

• In 2013-14, 44 percent of Iowa’s school districts educated 12 percent of Iowa’s school children. Those districts have a certified enrollment under 600. Nearly one-third (31.4 percent) of K-12 students are in the state’s largest 11 districts. (p. 5)

Omaha World-Herald:

The Iowa School Budget Review Committee has granted requests from the Farragut and Hamburg school districts for additional budget authority, allowing them to spend dollars beyond those typically allowed for general fund expenses.

Other stories: KMA (Tuesday), KMA (Thursday), Nebraska City News-Press.

The requests don’t mean the districts won’t be forcibly dissolved, but it does allow leeway to work things out, most specifically where students in grade 6-8 will go to school. No matter the decision, the original Hamburg High School building will close.

Walnut students have been participating in AHST athletics for years, but they just started in grade-sharing this school year. The districts are likely headed toward consolidation and Walnut’s near century and a half of independence will end.

However, while it’s the obvious answer, “AHSTW” apparently isn’t an option for the merged district’s name going forward.

Both districts “agreed that AHSTW is something they don’t want to go with,” Green Hills AEA administrator Lane Plugge told KMA at the end of October. Last week, in an Omaha World-Herald article about expansion of the school in Avoca, AHST’s superintendent said there would be a name given in the coming weeks.

The history of the AHST name has something rare (if not unique) in Iowa: A town’s name was added back in. When the Avo-Ha district merged with Shelby (officially in 1996), the town of Tennant was included in the new acronym.

If they’re not going with the acronym, specific geographic options are hard to come by. The combined district would be in south Shelby and northeast Pottawattamie counties. The “Nishnabotna” name is taken, at least for a while. I-80 runs right through the middle of the district, so AHSTW could be like I-35 of Truro, which has the perfectly matching nickname of Roadrunners.

Austin Draude pointed me to this Newton Daily News article that’s pretty much a bolt out of the blue: The very-long-term Collins-Maxwell-Baxter athletics sharing agreement may be falling apart. According to the article, there are some complaints about the location or split of games, and favoritism toward one side or the other. A coach and students refute that.

The two districts are wholly separated except for athletics. Neither can field an 11-man football team on its own, and there aren’t many options in the surrounding area.