ICCSD refuses to meet with Hills community

The ICCSD Board of Education has refused an invitation to visit with the community of Hills. They instead invited community members to talk at the upcoming board meeting, where they would not have to answer any citizens’ questions. As quickly as they are trying to push the closing of Hills Elementary, it’s somewhat surprising they would even allow that.

The district slogan of “All In For All Kids,” should also add “Except for Hills students.” But All In For All Kids Except Hills Students isn’t quite as catchy.

In 2021 Hills Elementary was nationally recognized as a Blue Ribbon School. The next year, after years of waiting, the ICCSD board voted overwhelmingly to build a new elementary school in Hills. Two years later they are recommending closing the school, leaving Hills as the only community in the district without a school.

On Feb. 26, the district administrators informed the community and the Hills staff that they planned to close the school. The next night they made that recommendation to the board and said they would vote on it in one month. Giving the community little time to react and rally support for the school.

How did we get to this point? That is hard to tell exactly. The original plan was to build behind the current school, thus not having to move students. That idea was quickly pulled from the five presented options. They didn’t want to build they said, so close to a school that had kids in it, despite doing so in many other schools in the district. In another option, the city did not want to give up its park for two years by swapping land.

The option to purchase land never took off either. The district said they talked to “numerous’ land owners about purchasing land. They didn’t. The other two options involved relocating the students for one year while the new school was built. The district never bothered to pursue these options, when turned down for buying land, they just sat silently.

ICCSD said that without the loss of 60 students to vouchers district wide, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. So the loss of less than $500,000, and an average of two kids per building, is causing the closing of a school? They mention the cost of educating students at Hills is more than other schools. Hills has a student body that is facing more obstacles than probably any other school, with high free and reduced lunch and English language learners numbers. That is why it takes a little bit more and it has shown great results as evidenced by the Blue Ribbon recognition. Yet if we had those 60 students back, this wouldn’t be an issue, so cuts would then be made in other places. So why aren’t those cuts being looked at?

One board member wrote me, “according to recent demographic studies, Hills is not growing to the extent its leaders thought it would 10 years ago.” What? Since 2010 our population has grown from 700 to almost a 1,000, about a 35+% growth. With most of that coming since a citywide water system was put installed in 2015. It has grown beyond our expectations. We are a growing community, not shrinking.

Administrators said they did not come to this decision quickly, yet it was a surprise to staff and the community. When was the decision to close Hills first brought up? While they may have not come to the decision quickly, they are sure being quick about closing it. One month? We ask that the district keep Hills Elementary open, even if officials are not ready to build a new school. They were presented with other options to save the money. Why does Hills have to bare the brunt of their cuts? Closing the school would just be the most recent of example of the mistreatment of Hills Elementary.

Closing a school should be a monumental decision, not a knee-jerk reaction made in 30 days. We ask all community members in the district to contact board members asking that Hills Elementary not be closed. The district patrons and the students, staff and community of Hills deserve better.

Tim Kemp is the mayor of Hills.