A committee is being established to study the reorganization of the Algona and Lu Verne School Districts. Algona Superintendent Joe Carter says the process began last June.
“We’ve entered into joint employment with the Lu Verne district,” he says. “Heading into year two of that study, we need to create a joint committee and that committee would involve people from the Algona district as well as people from the Lu Verne district.”
In 2015, the two districts entered into a whole grade sharing agreement and sixth through 12th grade students from Lu Verne attend school in Algona’s middle school and high school. Carter says the districts already have a number of sharing agreements for the pre-K through fifth grade building in Lu Verne.
“We do have a shared teacher leadership and compensation program. We have shared staff through music, transportation, buildings and grounds. We have a shared instruction approach,” Carter says. “We have a shared academic calendar.”
The Corwith-Wesley and Lu Verne School Districts entered into the state’s first whole grade sharing agreement in 1984. The Corwith-Wesley district dissolved in 2015. There are currently 327 school districts in Iowa. That’s a 26% decline compared to the number of districts in Iowa in 1980.
(By Brian Wilson, KLGA, Algona)