Superintendent recommends citizen's committee for new elementary

CEDAR RAPIDS - The College Community school district is assembling a committee of residents to advise officials on a new elementary school they hope to open in 2014.

The committee will help make some of the decisions before an election to fund the school is called, Superintendent Dick Whitehead said at last night's school board meeting. A new elementary school has been in the district's long-range plan for some time, and persistently increasing enrollment has made it a necessity, Whitehead said.

“We're going to be plenty pinched between now and then at the rate our elementaries are growing right now,” he said.

Whitehead asked board members to recruit three to five residents each from the districts they represent. The committee members will be appointed at the board's December meeting, and the panel itself will meet twice in January.

Board President Randy Bauer said elementary school parents are ready for a new school.

“My sense is, from the people I talk to, is they think it's time,” he said.

Also last night, the board held a public hearing on and unanimously approved a bid to purchase four school buses from Des Moines-based Thomas Bus Sales for about $350,000. One of the buses is equipped with a lift for transporting special education students.

Board members also considered several new policies - clarifying school transportation to athletic events in Cedar Rapids, specifying the circumstances in which parents can view video footage from school buses, and changing the district's bidding requirements. All three policies were approved unanimously.