CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — In another lengthy meeting of the Cedar Rapids Community School District Board of Education, community members continued to make their voices heard.
More than 20 people addressed the board during a five-hour meeting on Monday, Feb. 9, 2026, but with only 3 minutes allotted per person, the public comment period lasted just one hour.
Board members spent much of the remaining time deciding between three “redesign” options for the school district, but in the end, voted to forward two of those models.
Related: School Board hears redesign options
The board solidly eliminated a model that would have reduced the number of high schools from three to just two: Jefferson and Washington, while repurposing Kennedy High School for younger students.
More than half of the respondents to an online survey reported they would be “highly likely” to leave the Cedar Rapids school district if Kennedy was removed as a high school.
About 2,500 families took part in the survey, while staff, administrators and just over 80 members of a community coalition also participated, to determine which model was most favored.
While many of the respondents were Kennedy families, the board appeared to take that message seriously, voting to move forward with two other options and eliminating the two-high school model.
After hearing from numerous advocates of Johnson STEAM Academy, a diverse elementary school in Wellington Heights, the board also decided to not consider options that would close Johnson.
“We have an all-white board here, of a certain socioeconomic status,” board member Kaitlin Byers noted. “Closing JSA would disproportionately impact black and brown students on the southeast side of our town.”
“I don’t approve of an all-white board closing a school with our highest population of black and brown students,” she said.
The district is looking to address a $10-$12 million budget shortfall, which it attributes primarily to declining enrollment.
Each elementary school closure would save $1 million, district officials have said, and closures would not happen until the 2027-2028 school year.
The board did not address what would happen to the buildings of those closed schools.
Board Vice President Scott Drzycimski made a motion to consider one option that would keep Pierce Elementary open, while reconfiguring Viola Gibson Elementary into an intermediate school, for grades 5-6, even as one of the speakers noted that the school was designed for younger students.
The board agreed to move forward with the intermediate model, which would offer the elementary level for students through fourth grade; a fifth-sixth grade intermediate school; seventh-through-eighth grade middle school and grades 9-12 for high school.
The current six middle schools would remain as either intermediate or middle schools with the exception of Wilson — which would become an elementary school — while the feeder school option Dryzycimski favored would close Wright, Taylor, Cleveland, Nixon and Grant elementary schools and Truman Early Learning Center. Grant would have remained open under the other option, while Pierce would have closed.
Board members also voted to further explore a a fifth-through-eighth grade model, which would close Wright, Taylor, Cleveland, Nixon and Pierce elementary schools and Truman Early Learning Center, while keeping Grant open.
The model would keep all six middle schools, but expand from grades 6-8, as they currently are, to fifth through eighth grade, while the three high schools would remain grades 9-12, as they currently stand.
School principals spoke out against the model, noting that it would be akin to having two schools in one building.
Board members could vote in April on specific school closures.
Last month, the board approved more than $12 million in budget cuts, citing declining enrollment, including more than 600 students who left the district this school year, partially attributed to Iowa’s recent school voucher system, which provides taxpayer dollars for students to attend religious or other private schools.
More: Cedar Rapids School Board approves initial budget cuts
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