Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

Next week, the Ankeny school district starts the year with two high schools for the first time. Their names will be “Ankeny” — no qualifier, just Ankeny, in a building that was only built a few years ago — and “Ankeny Centennial,” for the north half of the district. The old Ankeny High building is now Northview Middle School, which feeds into Centennial.

This is more complicated than it should have been. I foresee occasional bits of confusion ahead, along with the difficulty of squeezing “Centennial” into headlines (so get ready for lots of “Jaguars”). The simplest thing to do would have been a geographical name split. This itself would have been unique, since we have no urban district with a “South” for its name:

• North: Davenport, Des Moines, Sioux City
• East: Des Moines, Sioux City, Waterloo
• West: Davenport, Iowa City, Sioux City, Waterloo
• South: none
• Central: Davenport, Sioux City (defunct), Waterloo (defunct)
• Presidents: Cedar Rapids, Council Bluffs, and Lincoln/Hoover in Des Moines
• Other: Dubuque Senior, the original school, and Dubuque Wahlert Hempstead; Iowa City High

The two non-conforming districts would be Dubuque and Iowa City, where the original did not become Iowa City East but remained “City High.” The original Davenport High became Davenport Central. Unlike those, however, Ankeny appended no suffix.

After all that shuffling, we’re about to find out how a new school can fare both academically and athletically in a district known for both. (And while I’m at it, here’s a shout-out to Mrs. Lindaman, my former algebra/geometry teacher, who is now Centennial’s first principal.)

EDIT 8/8: Wrong other Dubuque public school.

The Iowa Board of Education can’t even agree to have discussions about the creeping earlier start date for the school year. What makes it worse are the quotes from the board members.

Sioux City Journal: “I’m personally upset we’re put in a position where we have to make a choice like this,” said board Vice President Charles Edwards. “This needs to go back to the Iowa Legislature.”

Des Moines Register: “This needs further discussion than the state Board of Education can give it,” said board member Diane Crookham-Johnson. “I think this is a legislative issue; I think this is something that the Legislature needs to decide if they want to address.”

The Legislature already decided — it put the issue in the hands of the director of the Department of Education.

Here’s Section 279.10 of the Iowa Code (PDF). It has not been updated to reflect the law changing the cumulative time from days to hours. Paraphrasing Subsection 1, school “shall begin no sooner” than the week including Sept. 1 unless Sept. 1 is a Sunday like this year, in which case school can start as early as Aug. 26.

Subsection 4 deals with the waivers, which are to be made by the school and granted by the director of the DoE. The request is based on the determination that starting later than the date in Subsection 1 “would have a significant negative educational impact.” (emphasis added)

If the director (or, at the moment, interim director) of the Department of Education is granting waivers without school justifying the early date, then the director isn’t following state law.

If the board wants the Legislature to “solve it,” then perhaps the Legislature should solve it. Amend and strike the first two sentences in Subsection 1 to state “The school year…shall begin on a weekday no earlier than August 25.” There. Make it Aug. 20 if you want, but no earlier.

Edwards, quoted above in the Sioux City Journal, told Radio Iowa that he “has gotten more e-mail and comments on this issue than anything he has ever been associated with.” It sounds like the start date of school has become the fourth rail of Iowa politics. (The third, on the state level at least, is school consolidation.)

Meanwhile, kids who want to show animals or otherwise do things through the entire State Fair will just have to get advance make-up slips.