Rural enrollment declines spur schools to shed buildings

200 facilities are closed in 20 years

Rural depopulation has been the chief cause of the closure of over 200 school buildings statewide over the last 20 years, according to a survey of superintendents and the Iowa Association of School Boards.

The numbers of public school buildings in Iowa have plummeted to 1,310 in the 2019-2020 school year, down 15% from 1,534 in the 1999-2000 year, according to the Iowa Association of School Boards.

Local superintendents attribute it to the overall decline in enrollment in rural schools. Less students mean less government funding, increasing the financial obligations to maintain and operate multiple buildings. The result is consolidation. During the time period the IASB studied, school buildings in every school district in Buena Vista County closed or were shared with other public entities.

Scott Williamson, superintendent of Clay Central-Everly, Laurens-Marathon and Sioux Central, attributes this trend to more people leaving small communities. Laurens-Marathon, a district with the most severe enrollment declines in the state, has suffered a 21% slide in the last seven years. Sioux Central, Ridge View and Newell-Fonda’s enrollments have also deflated.

“That’s the issue that we’re fighting with,” said Williamson. “How do we attract people into the rural communities as a place for a quality of life?”

Consolidation in facilities is always the first place administrators look to cut costs in the face of state aid, averaging less than 2% growth over the last 10 years and not meeting expenses. Staff cuts are always a last resort, Williamson said in a recent interview.

Jeff Dicks, superintendent of Albert City-Truesdale and Newell-Fonda schools, says getting students all under one roof allows for finances to be redirected toward students instead of maintaining an extra building. That’s what he and the board did with the Fonda building around a decade ago. 

“Our board at the time wanted to be proactive rather than reactive. So, they made the move to get all the kids under one building and do the add-on,” Dicks said. “They saved their money up in building funds so that they could transfer to cost savings in the general fund, which is what we use to educate kids.”

Outside of Storm Lake School District, most districts in the county have consolidated their populations to a single building, like Sioux Central, Newell-Fonda, Albert City-Truesdale and Laurens-Marathon. Only Storm Lake and Alta-Aurelia have multiple buildings, and their superintendents don’t envision closures in the long-term.

The superintendents surveyed say there isn’t much left they can do to consolidate further.

Storm Lake Supt. Stacey Cole says there is a benefit for districts with an urban flavor to consolidate their buildings. Since 2000, Storm Lake’s had the lion’s share of building closures of school districts in the county. After the opening of the elementary school, the school board sold off North School, West School and South School; it kept east for early childhood programming, but after the opening of the Early Childhood Center next decade, Cole says the district has little to no use of East, which was built in the 1950s.

“We have less buildings, but we’ve gotten more modern,” Cole says. “It’s not like strict budgetary concerns made us close them.”

School closures are also an equity issue, Cole told the Times. It’s common practice for more privileged children to go to one school while lesser economically or physically sound children go to another. Cole explained that the expectations for these students are different at different schools.

By putting them all under one roof, those students who might have had lower expectations at previous schools now have same level of expectation of the other students.

“I think most of us are at a pretty good balance with our building holdings,” Cole said. “For districts like ours, they’re undergoing expansions. For the others around us, we’re looking at managing a single building with a declining population over time.”

Williamson, who’s assumed shared superintendent duties at CC-E and L-M recently in the last five years, said he’s exploring other ways to reduce costs, like transportation and busing. He said the district already spends $954 per student on transportation costs, one of the highest levels of transportation spending in the state. In recent years, the Sioux Central School Board has explored installing solar panels on its bus barn and alternative purchasing of vehicles.

Williamson says the state must adjust to the new reality of larger school districts with shrinking populations.

As districts get larger, their vehicle fleets have to travel a wider geographic radius every day, which makes maintenance and replacement more frequent. He said many districts are already near the state’s statutory maximum time for bus rides, around an hour. 

“What is [the state’s] plan 10 to 15 years down the road?” Williamson asked. “It’s going to be very difficult sledding for us.”

*Originally published in The Storm Lake Times.