i attended the meetings too. I believe that Harmony got the Harkin grant for that addition (van buren also got a Harkin grant at the same time for Stockport.) Both are closed now. Harmony had four locations when it started. It closed Hillsboro in the 1980s. Then it closed the Farmington middle school. The Harmony board then whole grade shared with Van Buren and moved the elementary to the high school.
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Not sure what was said at the VB meetings, but I know what I saw and heard at the meetings at Harmony, and those promises were made. Harmony passed a bond issue of around $5 million to rebuild the middle school and build the new elementary addition, along with adding a new computer room and a couple of classrooms at the HS. Within a few years the MS building was closed, that occurred the year before I got to Harmony. From what other teachers said, the supt. wanted to close the ms and elementary and build a new building at the high school site, but the people in Bonaparte, refused to go along with it, and rejected the idea, so they wasted money on buildings that were old and outdated and within 7 years both were no longer being used as schools. Many thought at the time, if they had moved everything out to the high school, the district could have remained open, but they were spending a fortune, busing kids and running two centers.
Once the feeling got out in the community the school was going to close, parents started to open enroll their kids outs, figuring it was going to happen down the road, they might as well send their kids out when they got to MS. Once that started in large numbers within 5 years the district was merged. The old supt. retiring and the hiring of the new guy from Cardinal was a big reason for it. He went on a spending spree that the district could not afford, was fighting with the finance lady, because he was moving money around and spending it for items that it should not have been used for. Before Harmony went under he was hired at Morman Trail in a shared position, and started doing the same thing to them, but Covid hit and he passed away. Every year at the start of school year the staff would ask "how are we doing financially," the response was always "its tight, but we are going to make it". The year before they closed the HS, we heard the same message, then around Thanksgiving the entire staff was called in for a meeting, and we were told that the district had to come up with around $500,000 to $600,000, as they had overspent and the state was going to shut them down if they could not come up with the money. It was the beginning of the end.
I went to many of those meetings too. I respectively disagree with a couple of points and will add my observation. Your other points are spot on. Both Harmony and Van Buren spent a lot of money on facilities that are no longer used. I don’t think they rebuilt the middle school in Farmington. Did they make updates?
1. Neither school district could make promises on anything, including school colors and mascots, before the reorganizational vote, because the state law wouldn’t allow that. Not going to disagree that comments were made on this. But only the transitional board had that authority to decide, and the patrons hadn’t yet given it.Both sides were told that. After the reorganizational vote, under the transitional board (there were three boards at this time), there was a procedure outlined and approved. Eventually the students voted on what they wanted. Essentially no change. It wasn’t unanimous.
2. Harmony’s financial and open enrollment issues began to “intensify” after two events: the board hired a superintendent who as it turns out had a credential issue. Then came the closing of the Farmington center. Enrollment dropped.
I am almost sure that the Harmony board was the one that closed the Bonaparte center, not Van Buren County CSD. I’ll stand corrected if that wasn’t the case. Did you realize that Harmony owned several acres (maybe 40) in farmland right east of the high school?
I will say that Van Buren County CSD’s financial situation was really strengthened by the reorganization vote, because of the incentives and also the combining of the two high schools.
This is totally on point and correct. City boundaries generally have nothing to do with school district boundaries. Using the DSM metro as an example, but Ames is also a good one, as the post above mentions, those districts were established when most areas were very rural and the high school (or the single "consolidated" K-12 building) was generally in the center of the district. That often meant the building was in the "center" of the small town, but rural areas stretched for miles in order for farm families to have a "consolidated"--not township--high school to attend. These township consolidations occurred 50 to 100 years ago.
The entire Waukee School District is in Dallas County. When originally established, there were a few hundred people in the town of Waukee (where the original school is still standing in the "Triangle Area" of town), and all other students who attended school were rural. The cities of Urbandale, Clive, and West Des Moines have all grown into Dallas County, and those suburban homes are on rural land that was and is part of the Waukee Schools without being in the city of Waukee. Urbandale School District is small and in Polk County only. The West Des Moines School District encompasses basically the Polk County portions of West Des Moines, Clive, and that small section of Urbandale.
Most of the growth in the city of Ames is in the Gilbert School District. The town of Gilbert is still fairly small, but homes have been built in north Ames which has never been part of the Ames School District.
Similar growth also is occuring in the College School District, which most folks relate with Cedar Rapids Prairie. That high school is not affiliated with the Cedar Rapids Public Schools.
School districts are separate political entities from cities.
Plus, much of the Easter Lake area of Des Moines is in the Carlisle School District. Half of Pleasant Hill is in the Des Moines School District and the other half is Southeast Polk.
And, of course Southeast Polk is a consolidated district of these three original districts: Runnells, Altoona, Mitchellville. Not surprisingly, upon consolidation they decided to call themselves the Rams.
Before the reorganization vote, promises about changing school color and mascots were made. What should have been a merger of districts, became nothing but a takeover by a stronger district over a weaker district. Which I am sure helped the remaining district bringing in all the new farm ground under its control,.
Harmony's issues over open enrollment started at least 4 years before the last supt. was hired. They lost one of the better athletes to VB at this time, who's sister had been a very good athlete at Harmony and the boy went to VB starting in 7th grade, around 2009, he went on to be the best player in his grade, QB on the only team to go to the playoffs, best player on their baseball team that played for the state championship and played minor league baseball out of college. His class was hallowed out by open enrollment, which did not occur for at least another 5 years after he left. In other words the "feeling" was already out in the community that the school was going under, even when it could have gone on for years without the over spending by the last supt. in my and others that worked ther at the time.
The guy you are talking about, his parents worked in Keosauqua, the assistant baseball coach at VB was drafted by the Cubs and I think he really wanted to play for coach Parsons. He was the greatest high school quarterback I ever watched. Had two all state wide receivers. FYI Harmony benefited from an open enrollee from Burlington who should have been Iowa Mr. Basketball. The only game they lost at state was to a guy who went on to be drafted by the NBA. The SEISC produced some of the greatest Iowa high school preps.
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Talking about Saunders, the basketball player was before I got there, but they lost a lot more than they ever gained. We can agree to disagree how it all went down, but I know promises were made and not kept. I also know quite a few former Harmony teachers that are not thrilled because of the way everything was handled. The feeling from many of them is VB needs us almost as much as we need them, while we have options and they don't. Options being going to Central Lee or Mt. Pleasant.
Runnells, Altoona, Mitchellville and Swan I believe...
Basketball player was Willform. If you look at those landowners who wanted to opt out, they were either located in Hillsboro or Farmington. Harmony board reached out to Central Lee and Mt. Pleasant, and they wanted only the kids, not the building. Van Buren was the only one who would take both. Once the Hillsboro school closed, I think many open enrolled to Mt. Pleasant, because Salem elementary was just up the road. I know the Harmony teachers were upset, don’t disagree. I have good friends in both districts and I read in the paper that the Van Buren school foundation purchased band instruments at Harmony during the whole grade sharing process and put in $10,000 in each of the elementary centers this past year. From the sounds of it, the Van Buren school foundation would rival most of the bigger schools in Iowa. Agree with teachers that Van Buren needed Harmony and Harmony needed Van Buren.
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Treynor votes to stay in Western Iowa Conference
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Treynor votes to stay in Western Iowa Conference
Treynor is staying in the Western Iowa Conference.
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