The AGWSR School District is considering changes to its grade level configuration among elementary school students.
Superintendent Erik Smith says the conversation began mainly due to budget concerns.
“One of the biggest reasons we started having this conversation surrounded financials, and looking at some ways to help with our budget stability, much like every district across the state of Iowa right now,” Smith says. “That’s a big discussion. We’ve just cut $230,000 for this new fiscal year’s budget. How do we sort of maintain some financial stability and viability moving forward? And this is one of those ways to do so. By bringing everybody together under one roof, we would have the opportunity to have more control over the number of sections that we have. And instead of at times, having three sections of a grade level, we would only need to have two. And obviously that’s a big savings for the district.”
Currently, elementary students in Ackley and Geneva attend Ackley Elementary in grades kindergarten through fifth grade. Students who live in Wellsburg and Steamboat Rock attend Wellsburg Elementary in grades kindergarten through second grade and Ackley Elementary in third through fifth grade.
A key consideration is section size. The district has provided three options:
Option #1 would keep all grade levels and sections the same. The change would be a school board discussion on classroom size and an annual review of staffing needs in the event another section would need to be added.
Option #2 would include keeping grade levels and sections the same. The change in this option would involve a maximum number of students per section, and transferring students to another building if a classroom size exceeds the maximum.
In Option #3, all kindergarten through fourth grade students would attend Ackley Elementary, and all fifth through eighth grade students would attend the Wellsburg Center.
Smith says a few considerations will be discussed.
“The ultimate decision-making goal will be, how do we as AGWSR continue to maintain our AGWSR identity within all of our communities? And I still think as much as we don’t want that to, it still does cycle back at some point in time to financial stability. So how do we best maintain the AGWSR district so that all of our communities can maintain their identity as AGWSR cougars? Ultimately, I think that’s where the board needs to continue to look and have their priority as far as making that decision.”
Smith adds that over the last 10 years, there have been 11 extra classroom sections, which equates to $550,000 in extra spending. Smith says the goal is for the school board to make a decision at its December meeting. Community members will be asked for their input in a survey.
Erik Smith interview:
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