hypothetical thoughts

[DSMan]

I know in some states (Florida being an example) the schools are not done by a municipal or township basis but rather on the county so instead of being the Ankeny school district you would have the Polk County school district.

If Iowa was to do that, would it eliminate the need for 8-man and possibly Class A? I could also see the standards for Class 4A change also. You would maybe need 1500 kids instead of the 1000 that's currently the case.

In Polk County, I could see Urbandale expand in size (since less than half of the city of urbandale is actually zoned to urbandale), Johnston would probably annex Grimes (which is zoned to a Dallas County school), Saydel would either go to DM North or Ankeny, Bondurant-Farrar would probably go to either Ankeny or SEP, and North Polk would get zoned to Centennial.

In Dallas County, Waukee would still be its own hs while Perry, Van Meter, ADM, Dallas Center, Dexter, Redfield etc would all be its own high school.

 

[makelovenotwar]

You are assuming county level districts would mean county level schools. The second point does not follow from the first. Easily see multiple schools in a single school district.
You could follow a policy of putting out a singe football team per county or maybe a single team for counties under a certain population threshold, even that would be a problem as some of Iowa counties are really, really large. Transportation would be an issue.

I believe Waterloo West and East have looked at something like this on-and-off over the years. Consolidating the schools or perhaps consolidating the athletic programs. The families are moving the the suburbs leaving fewer kids and the kids that are left are poorer. Schools have not been growing while until the new Iowa City school was planned the Iowa City teams just kept getting bigger and bigger.

 

[DSMan]

You are assuming county level districts would mean county level schools. The second point does not follow from the first. Easily see multiple schools in a single school district.

Well obviously the hypothetical Polk or Johnson County school districts would have multiple high schools but in the rural counties, there would only be one high school.

 

[DSMan]

anyways what I calculated is that there would probably only be 125 or so public schools in Iowa if this existed and coupled with the dozen or so private schools, you'd basically end up with the number of iahsaa schools in the 130s. You'd probably only need three FB classes.

 

[paxregis]

In the abstract, this is interesting. As a practical matter, it would reduce opportunities for young men to play high school football. County wide programs would lose potential players from the outlying towns due to transportation issues.

 

[PNation]

This wouldn't work in Iowa