DAVENPORT, Iowa — Davenport's Buchanan, Monroe and Washington elementary schools will close at the end of the school year, after the Davenport Community School District board voted on the planned closures Monday night.
It's phase one of the district's long-range facilities plan with the goal to address the district's large decreases in enrollment and "to set the path for the district for the future," according to superintendent TJ Schneckloth.
Monday's vote was the result of months of discussion, with every board member noting that closing the schools was not an easy decision.
Monroe and Washington elementary schools were identified for closure in part because of the age of the buildings and the costs associated with improvements. Meanwhile, Buchanan has the lowest enrollment out of the elementary schools in its region, and the building wasn't recently updated like Truman's was.
Board member Karen Gordon was the only one who voted against closing Washington and Buchanan, while the vote to close Monroe was unanimous after board discussion Monday night.
She said she was concerned about closing schools with high percentages of lower-income students.
"Also I would like to reiterate that evidence for why Buchanan of all schools isn't as significant or as necessary as the other two," Gordon said.
Schneckloth said the money that would be used to fix up the buildings can now be spent on other programs, helping attract more families to the district.
"By allowing us to reallocate our resources into programming, our CTE programs, our early childhood, our preschool programs, those are what attract families," he said. "Refocusing our efforts into each level, our preschool, our elementaries, our middle schools and our high schools and our post-secondary programs is exactly the direction where we're heading."
Currently, Schneckloth said the district has the ability to absorb all staff members at the three schools in positions elsewhere.
The district is in the process of redrawing boundaries for where students at those schools would go to school. It impacts roughly 1,000 students.
Monroe students would filter into Hayes, Jefferson and Wilson elementaries. Washington students would go to Madison, McKinley or Garfield, and Buchanan students would filter into Fillmore, Truman and Harrison schools.
Schneckloth said the school board expects to vote on the new boundaries on Jan. 8.
The school board also voted 5-2 to approve the plan to move sixth graders to the intermediate schools. It would make room for preschool additions to be made to K-5 elementary buildings. That change is slated for the 2024-25 school year.
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