Iowa City School Facilities Meeting 3: Community Favors New High School, Saving 4 Older Elementary Schools

Editor's note: I have children in the district and participated in the work session as a parent.

Parents, teachers and administrators favored two construction scenarios to address growth in the Iowa City School District, and both included a third high school and neither included closing any of the district's older elementary schools. 

For those keeping score, this was scenario No. 1 and scenario No. 4 among seven options in a facilities master planning effort. The roughly 100 people in attendance, broken into small groups, overwhelming supported these two choices, with scenario No. 1 slightly ahead.

This was the third and final community meeting on Tuesday as part of the facilities master planning effort. The school board is expected to winnow down to three scenarios, possibly as soon as June.

Clarification: It is not clear which scenarios were favored in the first two meetings.

What do you think about how the district should address facility needs and what are your priorities? Leave a comment below or post a blog. 

Learn more about the scenarios and submit feedback directly to the district, here.

Common priorities mentioned were building a third high school, protecting neighborhood schools (and the neighborhoods), limiting closing schools, protecting school feeder systems where cohorts stay together, and keeping the scenario close to the revenue purpose statement voters endorsed. 

Scenario No. 1 most closely reflects the revenue purpose statement voters approved earlier this year.

The scenario proposes to add three new elementary schools, a 1,000-student third high school and making renovations and additions to nine elementaries, however it comes up 700 spaces short on the expected capacity need of 15,372 students. Several groups proposed this with a modification to address capacity needs.

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Scenario No. 4 proposes one new elementary, moving sixth grade to upgraded junior high schools that would now hold 1,236 students and add a third high school for 1,500 students. Elementaries would also get some upgrades. 

The breakdown of scenarios included a cost-benefit analysis. Scenario one is projected to cost $215 million in construction, and a total 30-year life cycle cost of $822.5 million. It scored lowest in cost-benefit ratio at 70.2. 

Scenario four scored second lowest on the cost-benefit chart with a construction cost of $231.5 million, life cycle cost of $835 million and a cost-benefit score of 71.1.

The scenario that scored the highest in the cost-benefit score was No. 5, which proposes to close four elementary schools - Horace Mann, Hoover, Hills and Lincoln. Several of the scenarios propose closing one or more of these schools, most commonly Hoover. 

Some of the questions that remain are where the new schools would be built, and how the district boundary lines would be drawn.