Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Late Night Chronicles 65: Opstad's New Folly

Published on Facebook tonight...

The headline on the Press-Citizen website today was crystal clear. The Iowa City School Board, thumbing its nose at the City Council had voted to build a third high school when 'enrollment and finances allow for it' whatever exactly that means. The mess of redistricting that seemed to have consumed the headlines for weeks now had calmed down, now that plans to shift Wickham and Lincoln Elementaries to City High and Twain and Lake Ridge to West High had also been voted down. Yet people remain uneasy over the idea of a third high school- especially one that's being built out in the northwest coridoor area of North Liberty and Coralville.

I suppose there are a number of reasons for this- mainly that yet another high school on that side of town will only serve to exacerbate the growing socio-economic divide between the east and west sides of town that's been thrown into sharp relief by this redistricting mess. Maintaining some semblance of balance is a valid concern, but like many, I have to jump on the bandwagon and say that the idea of a high school out near North Liberty doesn't really appeal to me that much. Not because I think that a third high school isn't going to be necessity at some point, because it surely will be, but because it lacks imagination, ambition and a clarity of vision. The School Board is voting with its feet: the NW Coridoor is where the growth is, it's where the money is- power and influence are shifting over in that direction all the time, so why not give the rich folks what they want and give them another high school over there? After all, then they won't have to truck their kids to the ghettos of the eastside of Iowa City where they'll have to go to that school. (The school in question, being City High of course.)

So I'll just come right out and say it: ok, build a new high school. But build it in the right place- and the right place, I'm here to tell you, is nowhere near North Liberty, instead it's firmly on the Southwest side of Iowa City- probably somewhere along that new extension of Mormon Trek that they eventually want to creep up and around to Scott Boulevard someday.

Let me explain myself a little bit: West High is always, always, always going to be the preppy school. That's not to say that City High is a bad school in any way- in fact, all of Iowa City's schools are something to be damn proud of, because let's face it: there are schools much worse out there that your kids could be going to. But West is always going to be a preppy school- and if maintaining some semblance of socio-economic balance between the high schools is a primary concern, then building a new high school out near North Liberty is going to make maintaining a balance- or even redressing an imbalance that much harder to accomplish. And then we get precisely what a lot of people in the community don't seem to want: a rich kid's school and a poor kid's school and the mistaken belief that one is better than the other, when one may in fact, be about the same quality as the other. It depends on how you look at it.

Now, let's say we do what I want (because I'm awesome and other such reasons) and build the new high school out on the southwest side. It'll start as a 9th Grade Center at first: taking a broad mix of kids from South of Melrose and West of the River and a good chunk of the neighborhoods of the SE side. This initial move allows for two things to take place: first, West High frees up some room to absorb additional growth from the NW coridoor- and City High moves to redress the socio-economic imbalance that's plagued that particular school for sometime now.

As growth accelerates in the NW coridoor, that's when our 9th Grade Center would blossom into a full high school- the goal being that broadly speaking, everyone south of Melrose and West of the River and south of highway 6 only would be going to the new high school. West would absorb new growth from the NW Coridoor and City would pick up growth along the far east side of town and maybe some neighborhoods in the Manville Heights area, depending on how enrollment figures go. Ideally what we would want to evolve to is this: West High looking firmly North of Melrose towards Coralville, North Liberty and the new areas of growth and development along the Coridoor- City High stabilizing its enrollment figures and maybe even absorbing new students at a more natural rate- and our new high school taking a good mix of lower incomes from the SE, middle incomes from the UHeights SW side and upper incomes from the west side. A high school on the SW side of town would make achieving a better socio-economic balance between all three school easier to achieve. Let West High be West High and let City High be City High- preserving their identities within the community is an important goal and getting a better socio-economic balance in all of our schools should be the primary driving force when looking at a third high school.

There's another reason too- one that the City Council should see the wisdom of and sign up to right away, at least if they're thinking straight, which is an open question on their best days. 70 years ago, Iowa City's superintendent Ivor Opstad purchased a tract of farmland on the eastside of town in order to build a new high school and everyone thought he had lost his mind. Why, people asked, would anyone want to build a high school in the middle of nowhere? (Which is where the land was at the time.) Opstad's Folly they called it- and 70 years later, it's become clear that Ivor Opstad was a man thinking far, far ahead of his time- as Iowa City expanded, surrounded and grew up around Opstad's Folly: City High School. A new high school on the SW side could not only help achieve a better socio-economic balance between our schools, but it could also help spur residential and commercial development on that side of town. Sure, North Liberty is where all the action is right now, but once upon a time, an Iowa City School Board took a chance on what everyone thought was an absolutely crazy mistake. And look how well that's worked out for the School District and the Community as a whole.

We don't need pedestrian solutions or inside the box thinking when it comes to building a new high school. If and when it's built, it's probably going to be one of the more important decisions that the community makes for decades to come. All options, all locations should be on the table. Every idea- even the crazy ones- hell, especially the crazy ones should be open to debate and discourse. We need a School Board willing to be more ambitious, think in terms of decades and not just in terms of the next 5-10 years. We need a School Board that's willing to take a leap of faith- and maybe, just maybe, do something that seems totally and utterly foolish.

After all, it's worked for Iowa City once before. Who says it can't work the same way again?

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