School's out forever (except when it's not)
An update on the statuses of some historic school buildings in Iowa
As the 2024-25 school year comes to a close, three school buildings in Iowa are ending their service and one is nearing its end. Only one of those closures, though, will leave a town without a school.
Orient-Macksburg’s Class of 2025, all five of them, graduated May 18. The Creston News Advertiser reported that students in the band at Carroll Kuemper Catholic High School came down to provide music for the commencement ceremony. Kuemper’s band director is a former O-M teacher. O-M does not have its own baseball or softball teams, so the year is truly over.
Orient-Macksburg will become a “zombie district” — it’s not dead, but it isn’t really alive. It could also be called a “paper district” because its primary existence is on paper. For 2025-26, K-12 students will go to Nodaway Valley unless they open-enroll out elsewhere. Then the district will dissolve and most of the area will become part of Nodaway Valley. There will be two listening sessions next week about how the town of Orient and larger Orient-Macksburg community can best use the school site in the future.
Hoover Elementary School in Dubuque has closed, but it will have students in it next year. KWWL reported that the school will be a “flex space” for Irving Elementary students while that school is renovated. Hoover likely isn’t the only closure in Dubuque’s immediate future, as the district has been looking at realigning its middle schools.
Transitions in Toledo, Traer
The two oldest active school buildings in Tama County are going away — one immediately, the other in stages.
First, the clear-cut closure. Toledo’s 1914-15 school building has served as South Tama Middle School for decades. (Tama’s 1914-15 school building, which beat Toledo to the punch by two months, closed in 2006 and was intentionally burned down a year later.) South Tama has gradually consolidated all but the middle school into one campus on the north edge of Tama, closing two buildings in Tama and elementaries in Chelsea and Montour in the process.
Then Gov. Terry Branstad abruptly closed the Iowa Juvenile Home in 2014. That deprived Toledo of a major employer, but opened up an opportunity for the school district. It took a few years, but the IJH property was transferred to the school and voters approved a bond issue to transform part of that existing campus into a school for grades 5-8. This is the second rebirth for the site. Before the IJH, it was Leander Clark College, although no buildings from that period remain. An Iowa Highway Ends blog post from 2021 has more about the history of LCC.
The Toledo school’s 109⅛ years of service were not continuous. That’s not due to the pandemic — or the other pandemic — it was due to the derecho. The Aug. 10, 2020, derecho ripped nearly the entire roof off and caused significant damage to the interiors. It was out of commission for the entire 2020-21 school year, with students going to the old South Tama Intermediate School instead, while repairs were made. When the new middle school opens in August, the 1915 building and 1952 gymnasium will be empty.
The 1917-18 North Tama school building in Traer is in a more complicated situation. Upon completion of a new structure in the northeast corner of the block containing the school campus, the structure will be mostly shut down. However, even with a two-week delay in the start of school, it likely will be business as usual for one more semester. It won’t entirely be vacated after that. A video from the school says that sections of the building will remain in use for the library, cafeteria, art room, and a couple of classrooms. Its demolition is not scheduled until 2029.
Happy news for Harrison Elementary
Harrison Elementary School in northwest Cedar Rapids is closing next Thursday. The good news is, it’s only for two years!
After massive public outcry over Harrison’s planned demolition that contributed to sinking a bond issue vote, even though it wasn’t directly on that ballot, the Cedar Rapids Community School District re-evaluated its long-term strategy. The new plan, unveiled this month, maintains the architectural character of the existing building while a massive new structure is added to the back. The original entrance on 11th Street will be sealed off and the main entrance moved around the corner to L Avenue.
The original gymnasium inside the Harrison building will become an open area and the bricked-up arches on the west side will be reopened. Some inside architectural features and a mural on the first floor painted by one of Grant Wood’s students, William Henning, will be relocated to the second floor.
Harrison students will go to school at Madison Elementary for two years. In August 2027, students in the present Harrison and Madison attendance areas will go to the remodeled and expanded Harrison, and Madison will be closed.
Housekeeping
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Inflation index
THIRTEEN valedictorians, Creston? Really?
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It's wild to think that both elementary schools (Arthur & Madison) will close by the time my kiddos graduate from high school.
The current middle school building in Washington (1918) will be closed this fall when the middle school moves to the joint high school/middle school site. It was formerly the high school. No plans for this building have been announced.