The vote allows the district to determine where to send students next school year and what to do with assets.
ORIENT, Iowa — Orient-Macksburg Community Schools will become the first Iowa school district to dissolve in nearly 10 years.
On Tuesday, a special election was held and voters overwhelmingly approved allowing the district, which has one K-12 school, to dissolve.
Unofficial results show that 203 people voted in favor while 18 people voted against.
Last year, the district’s school board voted to dissolve, leaving it up to voters to decide the final outcome in a special election.
“If the vote fails for some reason, then in my conversations with the Department of Education as well as the school attorney, it is extremely likely that the Department of Education would come in and dissolve the district anyway,” Superintendent Jeff Kruse said.
A majority of “yes” votes means the district will decide where to send students and what to do with assets. If it didn’t pass, the Board of Education would have made those critical decisions.
“By having the dissolution vote, the outcome is being put into the hands of the local residents of the Orient-Macksburg school community,” Kruse said.
Declining enrollment over the years left the district with no choice but to begin the dissolution process last year. Less students means less state funding, and the district was expected to have a negative balance at the end of the year.
“We had 102 actual students in seats last year, and my first year here was 118 so it's gone down consistently over the last couple years,” Principal Dan Grandfield said.
Grandfield said he’s most proud of how far they’ve come: going from a “priority” rating in the 2018-2019 school year to “commendable,” the third highest rating, last school year.
“That's kind of the hardest part, the hardest pill to swallow is that we're doing so well, but it's too late,” Grandfield said.
Retired Orient-Macksburg teacher Ed Hansen said he’s sad to see the district go, especially after all the accolades received over the years.
“We were very competitive in sports, especially softball,” Hansen said. “I think we won the conference softball 20-some years ago. There's a lot of good things that went on.”
Under the district’s plan, some students will go to Nodaway Valley schools while others will go to Winterset schools. The district will officially dissolve on July 1.