Iowa High School BEDS count 24-25
- Thread starter qwerty
- Start date
WDM made the right decision to not spilt. When those discussions were taking place people also knew that was probably the pinnacle of Valley enrollment and in the long run enrollment would slide due to urban expansion. That is 100% happening.
They already call the shared teams the Tro-Hawks, at least that's what they call the boys swim team.
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Urbandale is land locked. All of the Urbandale growth is in the Waukee school district.
The school board actually approved for the freshman to move into the high school shortly before covid hit. Southwoods was going to be converted to a trades type school. The elementary schools are all K-6 and there are two 7/8 Junior Highs. They were also going to push the 6th graders to the Junior Highs which really needs to happen. I'm not sure what exactly happened but this was taken off the table shortly after covid. My son would have been the first group of 6th graders in the Junior Highs.
I guess that's better than Wolves or whatever other generic that every rebrand is using right now...
Not splitting was the right decision, but there have been several other ones from that time and since that could have vastly improved the building situation. Choosing to build a 9th grade only building instead of an entirely new 9-12 campus was a mistake that continues to complicate the district. And the recent decision to not move forward with the plan for move the 6th grades out of the elementary schools and into the middle schools to align with basically every other school district in the state.
Simple answer was money. Longer answer involved complications with Stilwell and shortsighted community members.
Idk with the state of public education in Iowa maybe doing the exact opposite of what everyone else is doing isn’t such a bad idea.
They have a cool merged name. Cobras. Reminds me of Dodgeball.
Yeah I mean it could be a lot worse. For whatever reason though they don't go with the Virginia Tech color scheme that would make sense, it's pink with orange outlines. I don't know why but it drives me nuts because I like the VT colors.
I think we'll get a preview with football because if they stick to the schedule they'll have to merge the teams a year before they merge schools with the way they handle the schedules now.
I don't think it's anything controversial. It would actually be pro student to do so.
The 6th graders still being in the elementary schools just sucks. They are treated like little kids and they need to be in the junior highs. Our son is a 7th grader and he has absolutely LOVED everything about junior high.
One of the other options was to put 6/7 in the middle schools, expand Southwoods to be 8/9 and the new tech center would have been at the HS. Selfishly I wanted this as my youngest is in 8th and I would have only had to take him to Stilwell last year. Luckily all the parking lot improvements have made it a significantly better experience, but I can't wait until this year is over. And still would have loved a 9-12 campus. Next year my kid has classes at both Southwoods and Valley. With the new tech center, there are students shuttling between campuses all day. Just another example of how decisions 25 years ago are affecting us today.
Curious what this claim is based on? Seems like a hard thing to track - is it just a survey new-to-district parents fill out? Cause surely none of them would put down academics or arts even if athletics was the real underlying reason, right?
I'm sure they get less athletic transfers now than in the past since they're not the best anymore, just don't see any way to accurately measure that 'more' transfer in for academics/arts.
If they want to do that, then what is the sense of having 8 man football at all? Like most of the things the state does they screwed this up from the start, setting the Beds number at 120 for 8 man and then allowing schools to go over that number for a cycle if they were projected to drop back down below that number for the next cycle allowed too many teams that should have stayed playing 11 man to drop down. The total to play should have been around roughly 90 that would have stopped a lot of schools like SEW to drop down, forcing them to continue to play 11 man.
You mention Sigourney and Keota, they have won state championships and the two schools cannot get along, once Howard left, they were going to go there separate ways then decided to stay together. Danville and New London shared football and then broke apart because both wanted to have their own program and NL had done very well playing 8 man.
CL/GL-R are routinely in the Dome as a shared program that isn't a consolidated school.
Not saying its not possible, but there have been a lot of schools that tried it and discontinued after doing it. Baxter shared football for a cycle or two and then decided to break away and go 8 man and has been very successful. Highland/Lonetree is another example. Moulton has shared football with Moravia, Seymour and Centerville, by sharing I mean sending their kids to play at those schools and now does not offer the sport or share with anyone. The state could fix 8 man, just make the number lower to get into the class.
I think 8 man football is bizarre, and it barely resembles actual football. So I looked up what other states play 8 man. There's a bunch. In doing that search I found there's actually states that play 6 man football along with 8 and 9 man football. My mind is blown for the day.
It's like 3 on 3 basketball. It just seems like a different sport altogether. Like football vs rugby.
