List of school districts in Iowa

In the early 1900s the state had 4,873 school districts. The state government passed the Consolidated School of Law of 1906 and this figure fell to 4,863 in 1908, 4,839 in 1922,.[1] and 4,558 in 1953.[2] That year some additional laws were passed that contributed to reducing this further, and so this fell further to 458 as of July 1, 1965; that year another law made providing a high school mandatory for a school district,[3] which meant school districts that had one room schoolhouses were required to consolidate.[4]

By July 1, 1980, the number of districts was down to 443.[1] In 1984, there were 437 school districts in the state that operated high schools.[5] In 1990 the total number of school districts was 430.[1] In fall 1995 the number of school districts operating high schools was down to 353, and in 1995 670 was the median enrollment K-12 of an Iowa school district.[5] An Iowa Department of Education consultant named Guy Ghan referred to the 1990s school district mergers as the "third wave".[6]

The total number of school districts was 365 on July 1, 2005.[1] In the 2016–2017 school year there were 333 school districts, an 11% decrease from the same figure in 2000.[7]

Circa the 1980s school districts began agreements to share resources, such as particular employees, or "whole grade sharing" (where students of one or more grade levels are sent to a different school district to get their education). In 2005 Tom Vilsack, the Governor of Iowa, proposed that requirements for school districts to have certain numbers of students or sharing employees as ways of reducing local government spending, though Vilsack never enacted those requirements. In 2007 Josh Nelson of the WCF Courier wrote that "Lately, consolidation hasn't been as big of an issue compared to previous years."[4]

By 2016 population losses in rural areas have fueled further school district consolidations.[8] By 2017 there had been school districts that had formed from different generations of school consolidations.[9]

• Nodaway Valley Community School District

• Corning Community School District

• Audubon Community School District

• East Buchanan Community School District

• Sioux Central Community School District

• Clarksville Community School District

• South Central Calhoun Community School District

• Carroll Community School District

• Tipton Community School District

• New Hampton Community School District

• Spencer Community School District

• Davis County Community School District

• Twin Rivers Community School District

• Galva–Holstein Community School District

• Pekin Community School District

• Sigourney Community School District

• Chariton Community School District

• Louisa–Muscatine Community School District

• Central Lyon Community School District

• Oskaloosa Community School District

• Whiting Community School District

• Albia Community School District

• South O'Brien Community School District

• Sibley-Ocheyedan Community School District

• South Page Community School District

• Emmetsburg Community School District

• Pocahontas Area Community School District

• Schaller-Crestland Community School District

• Bedford Community School District

• Van Buren County Community School District

• Ottumwa Community School District

• Northwood-Kensett Community School District

• Eagle Grove Community School District

• List of high schools in Iowa
• List of private schools in Iowa
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles/High schools/US/Iowa

• Anderson, Christopher L. (November 2009). "School District Reorganization in Iowa: Considerations for Administrators, School Boards, and Communities (PhD thesis)" (PDF). Drake University. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

• "Iowa Public School District Consolidation". Iowa Policy Research Organization. December 2010. - On the servers of the University of Iowa
• Sherman, William (2015-10-25). "Iowa suffers when schools consolidate". Des Moines Register. - Letter to the editor
• District Reorganization at the Wayback Machine (archived 2005-11-12) - Includes reports from the 1990s on school consolidation
• Ghan, Guy W. (January 1990). "Iowa School Reorganization: Where It Has Been and Where It Is Going?" (PDF). Iowa Department of Education.

• Iowa Department of Education
• Iowa's Lost Schools at archive.today (archived 2018-07-09) - Des Moines Register article series about rural school district consolidations and closures of schools