School District Lines

Wrong Answer, Good Question

I saw my father in law, former Clear Creek Amana superintendent Bob Steele, last weekend, and he was... bemused by ICCSD school board member Tuyet Dorau's proposal suggestion whatever it was that ICCSD take over the bulk of the CCA district.

The way Dorau said it showed a basic misunderstanding of local politics: the tax implications, the reasons people build and buy houses in specific locations, the small town emotions about schools.

That said: isn't it silly that our school district lines are all based on where people wanted to send the kids to school 50 years ago, when schools shifted from townships to school districts? There are rural roads where district lines zig-zag literally every other house. Isn't it dumb that cities like Coralville and North Liberty are split?

It's a hard problem to solve; Bob was one of the architects of the Clear Creek and Amana merger and he has lots of tales from that challenge. But in a ham-handed, inept way, Dorau has stumbled onto a problem.