Chad Schumacher, the Cedar Rapids school district’s director of operations, stands next to a map showing Harding Middle School, in pink, and the proposed site of the new middle school in orange, at top left. (photo/Cindy Hadish)

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — The Cedar Rapids Community School District’s Board of Education approved spending $7.5 million in property owners’ taxes to buy land far outside the city’s core.

No public hearing was held at the Jan. 13, 2024, meeting before the board voted unanimously to use Physical Plant and Equipment Levy (PPEL) funds for the 50.8 acres between Cloverdale Road and Ushers Ferry Road, north of busy Collins Road/Highway 100.

District leaders have said they already have two more middle schools than needed for the number of students enrolled in the six current schools. Building a new $90 million school on the undeveloped land would replace one of those: Harding Middle School, 4801 Golf St. NE, built in 1965.

More: School Board to consider land purchase

The library of Harding Middle School is shown in December 2024. The school would be closed under plans to build a new school on land currently outside the Cedar Rapids city limits. (photo/Cindy Hadish)

Although the board did not hold a hearing on the land purchase, members of the public spoke out against the proposal during the meeting’s comment period.

“The citizens of Cedar Rapids resoundingly voted down the bond issue, mainly because of the inclusion of new buildings,” said Jeff Palmer, a northeast Cedar Rapids resident who called himself a part of the silent majority. “This Board has already found a way to build two new schools since then, and now they want to add a middle school… I understand that the wording included in the availability of the PPEL funding says that it can be used for new buildings, but I would bet that most voted for it so that we could bring our existing buildings up to par.”

School district leaders emphasized the need to extend the PPEL levy for the maintenance of school buildings “to keep our students warm, safe and dry” 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.

Palmer asked it it was fair for the northeast part of Cedar Rapids to have a new school built “before the existing schools in more challenging areas get the upgrades needed.”

Chad Schumacher, the school district’s director of operations, said the PPEL money won’t be from future taxes, but from savings over the last 10 years.

The expenditure for land does not appear in the school district’s 10-year “PPEL promises.”

Schumacher cited a survey taken after the school district’s failed bond referendum in 2023, which showed some residents had voted against the measure because a potential location for a new middle school was not identified.

An audience member looks at images of flooding on Ushers Ferry Road during the Cedar Rapids School Board meeting. (photo/Cindy Hadish)

Tracy Weaver, who lives in the area of the proposed school, but did not address the board, questioned why those leftover PPEL funds were not used for maintenance of current schools.

She and neighbor Jack Marovets, who also attended the meeting, said traffic is already incredibly busy in the area without adding a 1,300-student middle school.

Ushers Ferry Road is a seal-coated county road, Marovets noted, and other improvements would be necessary to build a school in that location, which is outside the city limits.

Jerry Walton, who lives on Blairs Ferry Road near the proposed school site, showed the board and audience photos of Ushers Ferry Road when it floods and asked if traffic studies had been done.

“It’s like a river. It’s not going to be safe for buses to drive down that road in bad weather,” Walton said, noting he supports students and teachers. “Hopefully it comes to a vote to decide if this school goes through. I think a lot of taxpayers are getting really tired of getting stuff shoved down their throat that they don’t want.”

The proposed $90 million middle school would need to be approved by voters in a bond referendum, likely to be set for next November.

A task force examining options for school consolidations and closures had not yet made any recommendations, noted Dorothy de Souza Guedes, a member of the committee.

“It’s very disappointing and it makes me very sad that it’s almost like you’re following a playbook called ‘how to fail another bond referendum,'” she said, adding that she has attended every committee meeting. “We haven’t prioritized the building of a new middle school, particularly one outside of the current city limits.”

The task force has spent months in meetings and “homework” regarding facilities decisions, she noted, and she did not find the land expenditure in any of the group’s documents.

“Rather than spending $90 million… on a new middle school that’s unnecessary, why not redraw the boundaries to place more students at Harding?” de Souza Guedes asked. “This board and its administration are proving once again that they don’t listen, don’t proactively communicate and have convened yet another time-consuming committee whose recommendations you’ll ignore. Please change, or we’ll get another ‘no’ vote in November.”

Board president Cindy Garlock thanked the Tauke family for selling the property.

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.