Schools vote to share courses

Two neighboring school districts in central Iowa will be working more closely soon. At a joint school board meeting Tuesday, leaders from Rockwell City-Lytton and Southern Cal school districts approved each other’s high school course handbooks. That means next fall students will have an opportunity to take any course offered at either of the schools. District officials say sharing to that extent is rare in the state, but necessary to give students as many options as possible, while each district stays independent. Currently the schools share a few specialized high school classes, a cross country team, and have one superintendent for both districts. Declining enrollments in the area have made sharing necessary. Administrators say it will be important to continue talking about how the districts can find ways to work together.