Ames High changing conferneces

NWICY

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As an Ankeny graduate, I remember our conference included Saydel, Boone, Grinnell, Indianola, Urbandale, and South Tama.

Boy how times have changed.

Dang didn't realize that one , your high schools currently are bigger than some of thise schools K-12 enrollment
 

somecyguy

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Biggest financial problem for Gilbert is corporate taxes. There are very few dollars from businesses as there are very few in that district.

If the homeowners (and their home values) support it, it's not difficult. LinnMar in Marion is very similar, as there isn't a lot of commercial tax base, but the neighborhoods are mostly upper middle class and above.
 
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Pope

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Dang didn't realize that one , your high schools currently are bigger than some of thise schools K-12 enrollment
Yep. In fact, I'm guessing that if you combined the senior classes at both Ankeny high schools, it would be larger than all of the schools in their former conference combined. That is crazy.
 

cycloneG

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Ames is a smaller version of Valley HS, where the growth is occurring is outside their borders. One has to think that they would love to redraw the district line between Ames and Gilbert. I do know that many young families want to move into the North part of Ames because they want to send their kids to the Gilbert school district, its been rated as one of the top three districts in the state repeatedly over the past number of years. All the advantages of living in Ames, but send your child to a smaller higher ranked school district in Gilbert.

The rankings give Gilbert the edge because of smaller class sizes and far fewer low income students. Ames still blows Gilbert away in curriculum and college preparedness. People move to north Ames because of all the new construction in north Ames. Moving there for the school district is secondary at best. We live in the Gilbert school district but our kids go to Ames because the curriculum is better.
 

Pat

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The rankings give Gilbert the edge because of smaller class sizes and far fewer low income students. Ames still blows Gilbert away in curriculum and college preparedness. People move to north Ames because of all the new construction in north Ames. Moving there for the school district is secondary at best. We live in the Gilbert school district but our kids go to Ames because the curriculum is better.
I think you’re the exception that proves the rule. Anecdotally, I know many families that have very intentionally moved for the purpose of being in Gilbert schools.
 

aeroclone

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Is the Ames school district footprint really fully developed? Just curious if the fact that all the growth is in Gilbert because there is absolutely no room to build left in the Ames district, or if it was a case that all the growth is in Gilbert because the market demand is that buyers greatly prefer Gilbert schools over Ames.

Seems hard to believe that the city of Ames has grown to the school district boundaries in every direction, but I honestly don't know.
 

cycloneG

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I think you’re the exception that proves the rule. Anecdotally, I know many families that have very intentionally moved for the purpose of being in Gilbert schools.

And I know many families that enroll in Ames despite being in the Gilbert district. It goes both ways depending on priorities.
 
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ISUTex

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The Waterloo schools either have to go to Des Moines or IC and the Quad Cities, there just are not enough schools around that area for them to play and be part of a conference. Smaller conferences do not want to let them in, as they would be twice the size of many schools. Ottumwa is in the same boat, no other large class schools until you get to Indianola or SE Polk.

Why isn't Waterloo West in the same conference as Cedar Falls and the Cedar Rapids schools?
 

cycloneG

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Is the Ames school district footprint really fully developed? Just curious if the fact that all the growth is in Gilbert because there is absolutely no room to build left in the Ames district, or if it was a case that all the growth is in Gilbert because the market demand is that buyers greatly prefer Gilbert schools over Ames.

Seems hard to believe that the city of Ames has grown to the school district boundaries in every direction, but I honestly don't know.

All new residential development is being done on surrounding farmland which is in other school districts.
 
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AltoonaFish

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Is the Ames school district footprint really fully developed? Just curious if the fact that all the growth is in Gilbert because there is absolutely no room to build left in the Ames district, or if it was a case that all the growth is in Gilbert because the market demand is that buyers greatly prefer Gilbert schools over Ames.

Seems hard to believe that the city of Ames has grown to the school district boundaries in every direction, but I honestly don't know.
Nevada district goes to Dayton. Gilbert is Bloomington. Ballard goes to Ken Maril road. So north, south and east are pretty much full. Not sure of the United/boone line.
 

wxman1

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If the homeowners (and their home values) support it, it's not difficult. LinnMar in Marion is very similar, as there isn't a lot of commercial tax base, but the neighborhoods are mostly upper middle class and above.
I was going to bring LM up as well as it is an interesting relationship with the Marion Community School district. LM COMPLETELY surrounds it on all sides and guess where 98% of the growth has been in the last 30 years has been. I can think of maybe twoish newer neighborhoods in MCSD compared to countless in LM. Now, both districts struggle with commercial and especially industrial tax base. Compare that to College Community and CRCSD that has a significant amount of both.
 

aeroclone

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Nevada district goes to Dayton. Gilbert is Bloomington. Ballard goes to Ken Maril road. So north, south and east are pretty much full. Not sure of the United/boone line.
That isn't what I'm finding on the state of Iowa district boundaries page. Ames district to the south extends as far as 265th St, just beyond the airport. And to the east it goes past the interstate and a little beyond Teller Ave. Google maps shows the same. So seems like there is a lot of open development space east or south. Agree that north and west seem full.
 

Cycsk

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Lots of moderately priced homes being built west of Ames between Lincoln Way and Ontario approaching County Line Road.
 

AltoonaFish

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That isn't what I'm finding on the state of Iowa district boundaries page. Ames district to the south extends as far as 265th St, just beyond the airport. And to the east it goes past the interstate and a little beyond Teller Ave. Google maps shows the same. So seems like there is a lot of open development space east or south. Agree that north and west seem full.

Check the dotted lines.
 

AuH2O

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And know many families that enroll in Ames despite being in the Gilbert district. It goes both ways depending on priorities.
Ames gets far more open enrolling in as a general number than out. Yes, there are certainly people that move to North Ames for the Gilbert school district. I know a ton of people in both, and nearly all of the people that purposely got their kids into Gilbert were small town Iowa people that are now in Central Iowa. It's probably just closer to what they are used to vs. Ames.

But it's not hard to look at general statistics for education and success and once you normalize for socioeconomic factors, it becomes pretty clear that schools being great are about the kids that go there much more than the schools themselves. If you take the exact kid that's high performing, they are going to have more opportunities in Ames. If you had students that needed extra support, I'm not sure, maybe Gilbert would be better. I know kids that struggled in Ames and thrived in Gilbert, and vice versa.

Both are great schools in my opinion. Of people I know that live within the Gilbert school district lines, about half stay in Gilbert, and half open enroll to Ames. But I think that's skewed do to at least some of those acquaintances occurring through my kids being in Ames schools.

There were also a lot of problem a few years ago in AHS, but it seems like the problems with fights have been pretty non-existent the last couple of years. There were a few factors that came together at the same time:
1. The design and flow of the new school simply made it way easier to monitor and minimize those situations
2. The opening of the alternate school or whatever it's called has gotten kids that need to be out of the general HS environment out
3. Whether it's change in people or attitude of the admin, they basically started actually figuring out that some kids just shouldn't be in school. They were so soft kids that were serious problems they just let continue to come to school and they needed to be gone.

There was a time a few years ago that it was bad and we considered getting our kids elsewhere, but to AHS's credit, they really took it seriously and got their **** together in short order.
 

AltoonaFish

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The bold line is the school district. Ames school district goes east of 35, not Dayton. The south city limit follows Ken Maril. The school district lines still go south well beyond that.
The bold line is Ames. The dashed lines are school boundaries.
 
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