Iowa City Council Members Express Concern about Direction of School District

The meeting may have been hosted by the Iowa City School Board, but that didn't mean they got a free pass.

At a joint meeting of city, school and county elected officials held Wednesday night at the Education Services Center, members of the city council criticized the school district for favoring schools at the edges of Iowa City over neighborhood schools in the city's interior.

City council member Connie Champion said the closing of Roosevelt Elementary School hurt the Roosevelt neighborhood, and that council members and parents are worried that the same could happen to the aging schools in other established Iowa City neighborhoods.

"Now we're concerned about other core areas of Iowa City that have older school buildings," Champion said. "We just feel like you've created, not intentionally, an inequity in physical plants in the school district."

Champion told the school board members in attendance (Tuyet Dorau, Karla Cook, Jeff McGinness, and Marla Swesey) that the entire city council is in agreement that the city needs to work better with the school district to encourage mutually beneficial goals in these neighborhoods, and to update the aging schools so they are not seen as inferior.

Tuyet Dorau, as the only school board member who has served long enough to be a part of meaningful decisions the board has made, became the de factomember of the board tasked with stating the board's positions during the meeting.

Dorau said from her perspective the staffs from the city and school district should meet more often to see where their plans could work better together, and this included how the numbers might change in inner city neighborhoods.

"Some of the older schools are still in areas that are regreening, and it's important that we fully realize how that regreening is happening," Dorau said.

Champion said if the city continues to develop neighborhoods in the city's center, and then the schools are shut down, it would defeat much of the purpose.

"I don't know if you're aware of how much influence you have on development,"  Champion said. "We just feel that these inner core cities, these inner core neighborhoods are very important and they need to be preserved."

Council member Regenia Bailey also raised the concern that the district had not taken advantage of potential federal funding for some of these neighborhood schools.

Johnson County Supervisor Janelle Rettig said that she, as an advocate for a walking and biking friendly city was not happy with the school district's move to the edges with some of its recent schools, such as the soon to be opened Norman Borlaug Elementary School.

"It does us no good to encourage people to go to schools in certain areas and then for them not to have a way to get there except for driving," she said. "That is not sustainability at all."

Dorau also tried to assure the council members that no other neighborhood schools are currently on the chopping block.

"I don't think that the board has said that they are looking at closing any of those schools," Dorau said.

As for the federal funding, Dorau said that issue never has formally been discussed by the school board.

After the discussion was over, school board president Marla Swesey thanked Champion for bringing the city's concerns to the board's attention.

"It's a good thing for us to hear this information," Swesey said.