Here’s how closing Hills Elementary is saving the Iowa City school district $1.66 million

HILLS — Closing Hills Elementary School at the end of the academic year — a decision made by the Iowa City school board last month — is saving the district $1.66 million annually through the reduction of staff through attrition.

Hills Elementary staff who want to remain with the Iowa City Community School District are being moved into other open positions across the district. No educators or non-instructional staff are losing their jobs. Instead, the reduction in staff is being made by people leaving the district for retirement or other opportunities.

The $1.66 million saved by closing Hills Elementary equates to 8.9 instructional full-time staff members, which includes teachers and librarians, and about 25 non-instructional full-time staff members such as the principal, other school administrators, school counselors, custodians and stipends for after-school club sponsors, said Adam Kurth, Iowa City schools chief finance officer said.

A small amount of the cost-savings is operational, like utilities, Kurth said.

“We worked with each staff member individually to determine their placement in our district for the next school year based on their preferences,” spokeswoman Kristin Pedersen said in an email to The Gazette.

Current Hills Elementary Principal Reagan Boeset was named new assistant principal of North Central Junior High beginning July 1. “This administrative role will assist in our upcoming transition to a middle school model,” Pedersen said.

In the fall, the Iowa City school district is bringing sixth-graders up from elementary schools into the middle schools, which will teach sixth, seventh and eighth-graders. Right now, the district follows the junior high model with only seventh and eighth-graders in those buildings.

Six teachers and 10 support staff will move from Hills Elementary to Alexander Elementary. Students in the Hills Elementary School attendance boundary will attend Alexander Elementary School, 3571 Sycamore St., Iowa City, about 7.4 miles from Hills.

Only about 40 of the 100 students enrolled at Hills this year live in Hills. The rest are bused from the southern part of Iowa City or unincorporated areas of Johnson County.

Alexander Elementary School has two to three sections of each grade. Hills, however, has one section for each grade with as few as 13 students in a classroom for one teacher, which is inefficient, Kurth said.

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“When we look at the efficiency of our buildings, one thing that stands out is we start to hit a staffing efficiency sweet spot when we have a three-section school,” Kurth said. “It allows us to better balance class sizes.”

Adding the Hills student body to Alexander Elementary will mean even more grades will have three sections. Adding 13 students from Hills to the incoming third grade class at Alexander Elementary, for example, wouldn’t create the need for an entire additional section of a grade level, saving the cost of the district hiring a full-time teacher.

The goal for class sizes at Alexander Elementary this fall is no more than 24 students in a kindergarten classroom, no more than 26 students in first and second grade classrooms and fewer than 30 students for third and fifth grade classrooms, said Nick Proud, Iowa City schools chief human resource officer.

The district uses a model called the Weighted Resource Allocation Model to control class sizes based on rates of students who face barriers in their education.

The district is making adjustments to the model under the budget cuts — reducing seven full time educators through attrition, a cost savings of $630,000. But the budget cuts allow for the integrity of the model to be kept, school board members said.

Over the last three years, the Iowa City school district has reduced almost $25 million from its budget. This hasn’t included nonrenewing educators and staff for budget reasons, Kurth said. Although staffing levels have been reduced over the years through natural attrition.

The decision to close Hills was one of $5.5 million in budget reduction efforts made by the school board in March. The district will need to trim an additional $2 million next year.

Closing Hills Elementary was heatedly opposed by residents in the City of Hills and past, current and future families in the elementary school’s attendance boundary.

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The future of the Hills Elementary School building has yet to be decided by the Iowa City School Board. Hills leaders and residents agree they want to regain ownership of the Hills school building, built by the Liberty Township in the 1960s and sold to the Iowa City school district for $1 when the town joined the district later that decade.

Student, family transition plan

The Iowa City Community School District has convened a transition committee, made up of 13 school leaders from Hills and Alexander elementary schools, to help families with the transition to their new elementary school in the fall.

The district is holding an open house at Alexander Elementary School May 13, and three more events will be held over the summer to help families with the transition.

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