Closing schools ‘necessary’ as Cedar Rapids district aims to reduce budget by more than $10 million

CEDAR RAPIDS — Closing schools “is necessary” as the Cedar Rapids Community School District examines how to reduce its annual budget by more than $10 million after a decade of declining enrollment.

Options to reduce costs include consolidating four to six elementary schools, closing Truman Early Learning Center — a preschool program in the district — outsourcing non-teaching duties, and eliminating outside consulting contracts.

“No decisions have been made yet,” school board President Jennifer Neumann said at the board table Monday. “While ultimately, the board will need to approve the plan, we are asking district staff, families and taxpayers to provide critical and knowledgeable input to help craft the plan.

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The Cedar Rapids school district has seen more than 2,000 fewer students since 2017, with almost 1,000 of those students leaving the district in the last two years. During that time, few budget reductions have been made, said Karla Hogan chief financial officer and deputy for the Cedar Rapids district.

Last month, the district announced a decline of 624 certified students this year, resulting in a loss of about $5 million in revenue for the 2026-27 school year.

As enrollment declined, the number of teachers in the district remained steady at around 1,100.

“We weren’t prioritizing where we were spending our money,” Hogan said in an interview with The Gazette Monday. “We were using ESSER” — federal pandemic relief dollars for K-12 schools — “primarily to cover our operational costs and our every day expenses.”

The Cedar Rapids district received $52 million in ESSER. Most of those funds had to be spent by January 2025.

The funding also was allocated to upstart Truman as the district’s first full-day preschool program free for families. But after two years of operations, the full-day program is available to families for a fee. Free half-day preschool still is available.

Adam Zimmermann, chief of innovation for the Cedar Rapids district, said the district faced a lot of “turbulence and transition” over the last decade. There have been four different leaders of the district in that time, including an interim superintendent.

In 2019, the district had new leadership under former Superintendent Noreen Bush, who died from cancer in October 2022. During her tenure, she navigated the pandemic and a derecho.

Superintendent Tawana Grover began in April 2023, jumping into a school bond referendum that was already well underway under Bush’s leadership. The bond failed to gain voter approval in November of that year.

“Almost every year, you had some major crisis,” Zimmermann said.

Hogan said the district also had three chief financial officers over the last decade.

“You can’t come in as a CFO or a superintendent and say, ‘We’re going to do reductions.’ It takes a little while for you to get your balance and figure out where you are financially, or at least it did for me,” Hogan said.

The district did reduce the budget by about $15.2 million between fiscal years 2014-2017.

‘Right sizing’ the district with the community

School officials are engaging staff, families and community members this week in building a long-term plan that reduces costs and “best supports our students and staff,” Grover said in an interview with The Gazette Monday.

“I believe the urgency around consolidation — it really does stem from how we’re best supporting our students and staff,” Grover said. “I think our clear reality is that we will need to right size our school district, meaning that we need to reduce the inventory that we have. In order to do that, this may require us to reconsider our (attendance) boundaries.

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”I do believe right sizing is necessary, and right now, we are working with the community to talk about the best way to do that,” Grover said.

School board member David Tominsky Monday said the district is prioritizing “essential projects in light of future reconfiguration discussions” that would be funded by the Physical Plant and Equipment Levy, which the Cedar Rapids district uses to pay for routine and unexpected maintenance costs and school improvement projects.

The work began Friday in a Cedar Rapids school board work session where board members reviewed strategic priorities for the 2025-26 school year, enrollment, finances and the district’s strategic plan.

The school board was presented initial options to reduce costs that were created with input from principals and other school leaders, Grover said.

One of the options presented to close one of the district’s three traditional high schools was immediately “taken off the table” by the school board and is no longer being considered, Grover said.

A districtwide virtual meeting was hosted Tuesday to begin engaging staff in the work. Community members are invited to join a coalition that is holding its first meeting Thursday. For more information about joining the Cedar Rapids district’s community coalition, visit crschools.us.

What are the options to reduce the budget?

School officials have put options for reductions into four categories: operational; salaries, benefits and negotiations; staffing; and consolidations.

Options for consolidations include:

Options for operations include:

No decisions have been made

The school board has directed administrators “to gather a holistic range of options for consideration, specifically focusing on solutions to create a sustainable financial structure and optimize our facilities to support staff as they educate our students,” Neumann said.

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School board vice president Scott Drzycimski said the board is going to have to make “tough” decisions that will bring stability to the district for the next decade.

“It’s about how we change the story financially and what we can do to bring students back to our district,” Drzycimski said. “What is driving them in and out of the district? Where are we losing kids to and when are we losing them? How do we keep them here? It’s all part of this conversation as well … How we change the narrative for our district and make it a district of choice is very important.”

Reconsidering filling vacancies

The school board Monday voted to remove the appointment of interim administrator Jeff Frost — who is serving as interim chief of schools Area 1 — from a personnel report.

His proposed salary was $163,800.

Frost was serving as interim chief of schools in place of Maura Hobson, who left the district this month to serve as superintendent of a school district in Pennsylvania.

Hobson’s resignation “presented the urgent need for temporary coverage of all the duties and responsibilities she was fulfilling with as little disruption to the district operations as possible,” Hogan said during the board meeting.

“We now need time to determine what vacancy is to be filled on a longer term basis, and to do so in compliance with applicable laws and regulations. … We will present the board with a revised recommendation soon,” Hogan said.

Enrollment marketing campaign green-lit

The Cedar Rapids school board approved a $47,500 agreement with Informatics Inc., for an enrollment marketing campaign for the 2025-27 school years.

The district’s first districtwide enrollment marketing campaign aims to focus on increasing enrollment with targeted outreach for preschool, kindergarten, middle school, ninth grade and magnet programs using video, digital and traditional advertising.

The agreement is being funded by a federal multi-million-dollar magnet school assistance grant.

“If we retain eight students, the campaign essentially will have paid for itself,” said Ashley Burns, school board member. “This funding is set aside for these purposes. It is an intentional effort and a really good plan to help us grow enrollment.”

Why is enrollment declining?

Enrollment has the greatest impact on a school district’s revenue.

The Cedar Rapids district has faced increasing competition for students as more families became eligible for Education Savings Accounts since 2023. Public schools do receive some categorical funding for every resident private school student attending a private school through an ESA.

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Two charter schools also opened in Cedar Rapids over the last two years and two more charter schools are expected to open next fall.

There also are fewer students to enroll as birth rates across the state decline.

Forty-six percent of students leaving the district are attending a neighboring public school district, charter school, private school or homeschooling, according to data presented to the Cedar Rapids school board last week.

The majority of those students — 22 percent — have left for another Iowa public school district through open enrollment. There are 2,352 resident students in the Cedar Rapids district attending another Iowa public school, according to certified enrollment numbers this year.

Another 9 percent have chosen charter schools. Almost 200 students this year left the Cedar Rapids district for Cedar Rapids Prep, a charter school that opened in August to sixth-eighth graders.

Charter schools are tuition-free schools that are publicly funded, but independently run under an approved charter with the state. In Iowa, charter schools receive per-pupil aid from the state, just like public schools.

Four percent of students previously with the Cedar Rapids district have chosen non-public school.

School officials are examining what schools are experiencing the highest number of exits and at what grade level students are exiting.

Middle school and kindergarten has the highest number of exits — 31 percent and 16 percent respectively. The highest exit point in middle school is in the transition to sixth grade.

The district also has lost 203 kindergarten students this year to open enrollment, which has a long-term impact on subsequent funding for the district.

What would bring students back?

The Cedar Rapids district distributed surveys to all families open enrolling out to virtual, homeschool, hybrid or microschool programs asking what would bring them back to Cedar Rapids schools. They received 42 responses.

More than half responded that a hybrid schedule such as part-time in-person school and part-time homeschool would be appealing. Fifty percent said individualized academic support would be a draw, and 40 percent said early college and career pathways would interest them.

Comments: (319) 398-8411; grace.king@thegazette.com