Around 100 people turned out for the Mount Pleasant Community School Board’s work session Monday to raise concerns about the district’s purchase of part of the shuttered Iowa Wesleyan University campus The Mount Pleasant School District bought practice fields on campus for $115,000 and the central part of campus for about $1.1 million.
KCRG TV covered the meeting where a parent questioned the board during the public forum. “My question is, just because something’s a bargain, you buy it?” School officials say the chapel could provide an auditorium and other buildings, like Howe Student Activity Center, could be spaces for district offices. Superintendent John Henriksen says they are trying to see if the buildings can help the district.
“Are there opportunities for the Mount Pleasant Community School District in repurposing some of the Iowa Wesleyan properties?,” he says. There were concerns raised about the expense the district would take on in owning and maintaining century-old buildings, but many comments Monday evening had to do with what Superintendent Henriksen said was just a vision at this point. “What if we could bring our kids, all of our elementary kids, to that campus? It has been visioning, it’s been discussion, visioning, what could be,” Henriksen said.
Creating a campus for all the elementary students in the district is a controversial idea. A parent asked the superintendent about it “Do you think that by sticking all the kids together, that’s going to better the education,” he said. District officials said, right now, the idea for a centralized elementary location was just a vision, one that would only happen if the community was behind it. Iowa Wesleyan closed in May after nearly 200 years in the community.