Thursday, January 17, 2013
The Iowa City School District is holding special election to renew its revenue purpose statement early on Feb. 5. What would you like to know before you make your vote?
There will be a vote on Feb. 5 (early voting has begun, sample ballot attached in PDF form to this story) for people in the Iowa City Community School District that will determine if the district can move forward on its plan to borrow against its anticipated Local Option Sales Tax dollars to build new schools and update old schools for the district. Editor's Note: I want to know what more you would like to know before you make your vote, pro or con. If you ask a question in the comments below I'll try to get it answered before voting day. Adam Sullivan reports for the Iowa City Press-Citizen that a new group called "People for All" has organized to oppose this vote, which requires a simple majority of school district attendees to vote yes…
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
More than 100 people showed up to the Iowa City School Board Tuesday night to speak their minds on the proposed diversity policy. Many of them left disappointed.
It may have been a foregone conclusion after a motion to table the vote on the second reading of the diversity plan was defeated 4-3, foreshadowing the way the board would break down in its vote on the policy. It may have been, sure. But with more than 100 people cramming their cars into limited parking spaces and filling up the Iowa City School Board meeting room with a standing room only crowd, no vote was going to be held this evening without the members of the public speaking their minds. And speak they did, over 30 of them in total, for just under two hours of public comment time. Some of them are quoted in my Storify LiveTweeting of the meeting seen above. Many of these commenters left disappointed, as the Iowa City School Board …
Sunday, January 13, 2013
A change to the diversity policy that's garnered a lot of criticism recently received a bit more (and some support) at an organized school board listening post on Saturday.
Amidst public backlash and board member infighting, the Iowa City School Board held a listening post on Saturday morning to hear some public feedback on the recently proposed changes to the district's diversity policy. Adam Sullivan of the Iowa City Press-Citizen writes that an awful lot of people showed up to give their feedback. More than 100 people turned out to an Iowa City Community School Board listening post Saturday morning. The meeting initially was called so the School Board could vote on the second reading of the diversity policy — meant to curb vast poverty rate disparities across district schools — but that move stirred intense backlash from community members, so officials opted to only host a listening post, rather than vote…
Thursday, January 10, 2013
There was some question if the school board would hold the listening post at all after some dispute between school board members, but the time has been confirmed in a district media release: 9-11a.m. at the Educational Services Center at 1725 North Dodge.
Media Release Iowa City Community School District Board Members will hold a listening post on Saturday, January 12th from 9-11a.m. at the Educational Services Center at 1725 North Dodge Street. The School Board will have a second reading of the diversity policy at the Board Meeting on Tuesday, January 15th at 6pm.
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
A meeting that had been built up as being a potentially contentious battle over limited sales tax dollars ended up with the school board hearing a potential for an alternative.
It had all the makings of an Iowa City School Board battle. There was a limited pot of money up for grabs: $32 million in local option sales tax money (SILO) earmarked for the building of a third comprehensive high school. This was money that some board members indicated in previous meetings they were interested in diverting to what they felt were more pressing needs in the district, such as overcrowding at the elementary school level at Penn Elementary School in North Liberty and in Southeast Iowa City. Overcrowding that could be solved by building new elementary schools in these areas. At Tuesday night's school board meeting there were more than 50 passionate parents with different agendas and hailing from different towns, many of them …
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
There was no decision made on the fate of the Roosevelt Elementary School Building Tuesday night, but there was a general consensus that the building should be put up for bid again with community approved restrictions.
There will be no classes held in the Roosevelt Elementary School building this school year for the first time in a long time. But the building itself may hang around under the Iowa City School District's control. At least for a little while longer. At an Iowa City School Board Facilities Meeting Tuesday night school board members discussed what to do after a recent reassessment of the building brought in a value much lower than the $770,000 it was originally assessed at. Superintendent Steve Murley said this lower value was due to the restrictions placed on the property by the district in the bidding process after talking with the Roosevelt neighborhood about what they wanted for the property -- such as the building not being turned into …
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
With the district in an epistemic quandary over the truth behind its enrollment and capacity numbers, a mild consensus is reached by school board members on the way forward.
The Iowa City School District community and administration have a lot of building improvements on their wish list for the next few years. Roughly $94 million worth of improvements to be exact. What's clear is to do all of these projects, the school district will likely have to bond for at least $37 million in addition to the School Infrastucture Local Option sales tax money (SILO) it will have available by 2017. Beyond that, a whole lot remains in doubt. In fact, doubt was the theme at Tuesday night's Iowa City School Board Facilities Committee Meeting, where the school board was scheduled to discuss such hot-button issues as the third comprehensive high school, elementary overcrowding, and the district's troublesome grandfathering policy…
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
The next step will be for the district to decide how a third-high school does or does not fit into its long term plans.
It was a big crowd Tuesday night for the Iowa City School Board meeting, so big that latecomers were continually forced to search for more chairs to find spots to listen at the back of the room. With that said, the actual meeting itself was fairly uneventful. The crowd was in attendance to see the school board receive a presentation from the committee that created a report on a hypothetical 800-student third comprehensive high school in the district: how much it could cost to run, what courses it could offer, and how it would affect City and West High Schools once it opened. The third high school, likely to be built somewhere in the North Corridor area, has long been discussed as an antidote to constantly worsening crowding at West High …
There was a large discrepancy between how much the Roosevelt Elementary Building was assessed for and the one bid to buy it. So the school board rejected the bid in hopes of getting an idea of the building's true value.
The Iowa City School District is going to hold on to the Roosevelt Elementary School building a little bit longer. During Tuesday night's meeting, the board voted to formally reject the $201,000 bid from developer Place Partners LLC in Iowa City for the now close elementary school building. This followed a recommendation from Superintendent Steve Murley to not sell the building after the one bid the district received came far below its $770,000 assessed value. However, when this assessment was first done, it did not include some of the restrictions requested by the Roosevelt neighborhood, such as the building not being turned into a strip mall or apartment building. Murley said after the meeting that assessor the district used, Real …
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
That is still up for debate.
The Iowa City School Board has received new projected student enrollment numbers. What will determine planning next is how the board members interpret these projections. Why is this important? Because with limited School Infrastructure Local Option sales taxes available to build new buildings, how the school board members interpret these numbers could affect decision making for whether to build a fourth high school or two needed new elementary school buildings in the district. Or both. The Forecast Calls for Growth On Tuesday night, Geoffrey Smith with the University of Iowa Geography Department presented the Iowa City School Board members with new student enrollment projections for the Iowa City School District. (The slide presentation …
Mary Murphy
11:03 pm on Saturday, January 26, 2013
Thank you Maria. I appreciate your input! Mary more ›