NOTE: Anyone wishing to address the Cedar Rapids School Board at the Jan. 13, 2025, meeting should arrive a few minutes before the 5:30 p.m. start time to sign in as a speaker. Meetings are held at the Educational Leadership & Support Center, 2500 Edgewood Rd. NW. School Board members can be reached by email at: boardmembersdl@crschools.us
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — Even before a task force examining potential school closures has made any recommendations, the Cedar Rapids Community School District’s Board of Education will vote on purchasing land far from core neighborhoods for a new middle school.
The School Board will vote Monday, Jan. 13, 2025, on buying the 50.8-acre property, just north of busy Highway 100 and not far from the Catholic Xavier High School, for $7.5 million, using Physical Plant and Equipment Levy (PPEL) funds.
School district leaders emphasized the need to extend the PPEL levy for the maintenance of school buildings before voters went to the polls in a special election in September 2024. The PPEL renewal, a tax on property owners in the Cedar Rapids School District, passed with 72 percent of voters.
Related: Opposition forms to tax levy vote
A sign is posted before the November 2023 school bond referendum in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. (photo/Cindy Hadish)
A separate bond referendum overwhelmingly failed in November 2023, which had included plans for a new middle school at an undisclosed location.
Already, school leaders have said the district needs to close some of its six current middle schools. The task force convened to consider possible school closures has been meeting for months, but has yet to make any recommendations.
During the group’s meeting last month, the proposed land purchase was disclosed to the committee members, though no location was given.
More: School District ponders land purchase
McKinley Middle School could be combined with Franklin Middle School in plans under consideration. (photo/Cindy Hadish)
At the time, Chad Schumacher, the district’s director of operations, said the land would still have to be annexed into the city, but would be in northeast Cedar Rapids.
The group was told that the district already has two more middle schools than needed for the number of students enrolled in the six current schools, but building a new $90 million school would replace one of those: Harding Middle School.
To reduce that number, Franklin Middle School could be combined with McKinley on the east side, and Wilson combined with Roosevelt on the west side of Cedar Rapids, among the scenarios presented to the group.
Harding, at 4801 Golf St. NE, is located next to the city-owned Noelridge Park, but school Superintendent Tawana Grover said the district had not approached Cedar Rapids officials about possibly purchasing the property as of last month.
Built in 1965, Harding is one of the newer middle schools in Cedar Rapids. (photo/Cindy Hadish)
School officials have cited an ongoing shortage of bus drivers, but have not addressed how many students would need to be bussed to the proposed new school, located in a somewhat isolated area between Cloverdale Road and Ushers Ferry Road, north of Collins Road/Highway 100.
As part of the sale from Tauke Properties LLC, the school district would agree to include a memorial in the new school to Joan B. Nickol, also known as Joan Tauke, a Cedar Rapids ophthalmologist who died in July 2024 at the age of 90.
The district also would agree to pave a walking path of at least one mile that would be called Tauke Trail. Trees on the property would be harvested by the seller before the sale’s closing date, or later by the School District.
Just this fall, Xavier Catholic Schools announced it would renovate an existing building to be used for their new middle school, at 5005 N. River Blvd. NE. The location of Xavier, 6300 42nd St. NE, is south of the Tauke property and south of Highway 100.
Read more: New location for Catholic middle school announced
Kids need sleep. Teachers need to get paid more. All teachers should have an assistant to keep kids calm so the teachers can teach. The school meals are tragic. The garbage kids are fed at the schools cause hyperactivity and behavioral problems and early puberty.
Kids are going to have to wake up incredibly early to get to school on time. Lack of sleep weakens the immune system. The parents have to re-arrange their schedules to get the kids to school and rebudget the gas expense.
The school board does not seem to care at all about the students or the school employees. They are concerned with profit. Where the bleep are they getting this 7 million dollars for land? Land acquisition is what the school board wants. They are spending/ investing in
real estate, NOT the children or school employees. The School board cleary has no regard for students, the teachers or school employees.
The school board doesn’t care about the burden or health detriments they impose on cedar rapids residents.
they just sold a school near Mt Mercy in town for less than 10k/acre for 15 acres with a building on it… and then turn around and want to buy land outside of town (which should be cheaper) that needs developed to even be able to build a school for 150k/acre? This is just kickbacks and corruption for their friends.
This is fantastic news! So excited to see the new facilities!
[…] More: School Board to consider land purchase […]