Area superintendents respond to lawmaker's proposed school mergers

State Sen. Matt McCoy, a Democrat from Des Moines, says he will introduce a bill to force about two-thirds of Iowa's districts to merge. He wants to target districts with fewer than 750 students, and free up tens of millions of dollars in administrative costs that could be spent on teachers and students.

McCoy says he plans to introduce his bill within the next couple of weeks.

Some school officials say forced consolidation would eliminate local control, create unequal workloads among superintendents in urban and rural counties, and shift the focus away from students.

Area superintendents respond to McCoy's plan

It's an alarming but consistent trend. Nearly 70 percent of Iowa school districts have seen another year of enrollment decreases.

Of the 48 public north Iowa public school districts within Prairie Lakes AEA 8's boundaries, 31,000 students were calculated in this fall's certified enrollment figures. Of those schools, 12 have the over 750 student enrollment number McCoy would sanction in his bill. These schools, which tally 18,014, or 58 percent, of the AEA's students, include Algona, Clarion-Goldfield, Eagle Grove, Estherville Lincoln, Fort Dodge, Humboldt, Jefferson-Scranton, Okoboji, Spencer, Spirit Lake, Storm Lake and Webster City.

Bob Miller, Okoboji's superintendent, acknowledged their 878-student enrollment would not require them to be involved in this forced consolidation being proposed.

"I think that idea has been kicked around an awful lot over the years. But, I think it's probably a long ways off," Miller said. "I mean, that would be a major shift in the entire way that the state does business in the education world. He's probably right in that it would probably save money, but, boy, it sure would be a tough road to hoe for an awful lot of small communities within our state."

Spencer posted a 1,872-student certified enrollment in October. Greg Ebeling, the Clay County public school district's superintendent, noted that Iowa currently funds its school districts on a per-pupil formula. Of McCoy's plan to initially cut the number of school districts to fewer than 150 -- with each of Iowa's 99 counties having one superintendent, business manager, curriculum director and transportation manager -- Ebeling said, "While there is the superintendent cost that would be saved, and some business manager and some essential transportation (costs which could be saved), you're still going to be looking at more miles of transportation that will have to be driven."

"I think there's probably going to be the question asked whether one school per county is really what's best for kids," Ebeling added. "You're going to have schools that are currently operating fairly efficiently and have their mascots and all those things that create community pride a lot of community people are really excited about. With this, we'd have to go to one central location. So, I would see that bill getting a ton of backlash from the rurals, especially if you're talking about two-thirds of the districts (being forced to consolidate). And, when people go to their local community's school and watch their teams play and cheer for the mascot that they've had there for the last 50 years, I see that being a real uphill battle trying to force that down Iowa's throat."

"I'm not saying that there's not some wisdom in it," he continued. "But at the same time, I think it'll cut the heart out of what a lot of the spirit is in rural Iowa. That is my take on it. I mean, from a strict business standpoint, it probably makes sense. But from an emotional standpoint, I think, is where you're going to get the backlash. And, I will be surprised if our legislators really have the political will, even in this economy, to move something like that forward."

Ruthven-Ayrshire counted 250 students in its 2008-09 fall certified enrollment numbers. Ervin "Erv" Rowlands, the district's superintendent, responded to McCoy's proposal by asking for more research to be done on it.

"I'm not sure if he realizes that some of our counties in northwest Iowa, the 750 number he's using may cause some trouble for even an entire county on enrollment," he said. "The other thing is when you look at the savings as far as the superintendent, I know that's been thrown out countywide, but you look at how that will play out if you start having a countywide superintendent. In the case of Ruthven-Ayrshire, we don't have a curriculum director or a transportation director. So, you bring those costs in and is there savings or not savings because of the dual roles that people play? On paper, it sounds like you're going to save money. But, I know we ran into the case with South Clay, it's been seven or eight years ago now when we quit sharing a superintendent, but we actually saved money in both districts because we were able to operate more efficiently and we eliminated a curriculum director's position. Mr. (Dave) Schulz has fulfilled that role down at South Clay since that time and I've filled that role here at Ruthven-Ayrshire. So, there are cases where you save money by not sharing. That's why it's hard to have an exact response if it will save or not around the state -- because there are so many factors. I just hope they do a lot more research before they vote on the issue."

McCoy outlines bill to be proposed

Asked why he's proposing this measure now, and how he foresees it benefiting Iowa's students and taxpayers, McCoy replied, "Obviously, I think we need to start the discussion. I've felt for some time that we have been maintaining 362 school districts in the state, and it's very costly. The fact is that two-thirds of the school districts that we're currently paying to support have had superintendents and what I call 'the back room staff,' or the curriculum directors, the bus people and the accounting functions. There's a lot of duplications there. So, my hope is that by starting down this road now, by 2013, perhaps we can begin to either force the districts that have fewer than 750 students to close or to also look for opportunities where we can merge them with other districts and work on more of a regional approach to education."

The 42-year-old Des Moines native is a 1988 Briar Cliff College graduate who is serving his fourth term in the Iowa Senate after serving two terms in the Iowa House of Representatives. McCoy is currently chairman of the Iowa Senate's Transportation and Infrastructure Budget subcommittee and vice-chair of its Ways and Means and Appropriations committees. He also serves on the Commerce, Local Government and Transportation committees.

While McCoy acknowledged the nervousness some district staff and patrons probably have with his proposal, he also noted he has traveled around northwest Iowa and understands there are major differences between the state's urban and rural areas.

"But, I will tell you that to expect a district to have 750 students in it to support the type of infrastructure and the type of staffing that's required to run a district, that is a very realistic and reasonable number," McCoy said. "And, I just think that we've dilly-dallied around and have not faced the fact that we have a major budget deficit this year of $600 - $700 million. Next year, it's expected to be as high as $1 billion. And, as you can tell, the economic times have called for us to really be creative in our approach. We've seen an 8.5 percent across-the-board cut by our governor in terms of just budgets in general. And, I think that if there was ever a time to look for savings and consolidation opportunities, for saving taxpayers money and improving the efficiency of our school districts, now is the time."

McCoy then said enacting his proposed bill stands to save in excess of $50 million in 2013 or after because the state would "essentially drop to about 123 school districts" using the criteria he's outlined.

"This is not something that's going to happen tomorrow," he assured. "We set a 2013 date in the bill because we want to give it time for lots of discussion and lots of consideration. And, I certainly don't think that what I've proposed will be the final version of the bill. I think we're going to have a lot of input and a lot of discussion about it. But the fact is, we just can not afford to maintain these districts that are so inefficient, just from the standpoint of student-administrator ratios. And, again, I understand it's a very sensitive issue. But, it's something we've got to address."

McCoy concluded by stating, "I know it's a tough pill to swallow. And, I know that reasonable minds are going to disagree about whether small school districts have performed very well on school testing and whether there are advantages to small schools and small districts. I understand that there's a lot of identity tied into your town and your school system. And, I don't for a minute pretend to ignore those factors. But, I think that we have to have this discussion. I think it's very important."

Telephone messages were left with Prairie Lakes AEA Chief Administrator Kay Forsythe, Clay Central-Everly Superintendent Monte Montgomery and South Clay Superintendent Dave Schulz requesting their comments. As of deadline, the three had not replied.