John Van Nostrand: People can fix certain problems
May 21—Another chapter in the book about watching how rural America, and Iowa, are changing and it's not all for the good.
I applaud the four Orient-Macksburg High students who tooks months of the school year and researched the options for the small school district sandwiched between Nodaway Valley (Greenfield), Creston and Winterset. Last week, those four girls (three were there for the public presentation) explained what they learned and what they'd like to happen in O-M's future.
I can't imagine what it felt like for those girls to read and talk to others about school operations and sharing with others and face some hard realties at an impressionable age. The hardest reality may have been that 11 is the break even number for Orient-Macksburg class sizes based on all the funding formulas. There are grades with fewer than 11. There was only one junior in high school.
The last few years have been noted by the school as it switched from sharing classes and joining certain sports in Creston to Nodaway Valley. Usually, extra-curricular activities are the first signs of trouble with districts and declining enrollment.
Nodaway Valley is not new to change as it's the result of merging Greenfield and Bridgewater-Fontanelle about the turn of the century.
Orient-Macksburg is not alone with this issue. South Page School, with its building in College Springs southwest of Clarinda, is sending its 7th through 12th grade students to Clarinda for classes for the 24-25 school year. It is the second arrangement with Clarinda. The first agreement ended two years ago as South Page changed and sent its students to Bedford.
A more mobile society and fluid, little resistance open-enrollment procedures also compete with small districts, like Orient-Macksburg and South Page. This isn't your father's school culture these days.
It's fascinating the O-M girls noted when the changes in the district began. The girls referred to the late 1980s when O-M did not have enough boys to field a football team. I've heard from some Orient-Macksburg graduates from the early 1980s who said they remember conversations then about how long the school would last. (I know a retired South Page teacher who has similar comments).
The 1980s will unfortunately always be known as the decade of change in rural America and Iowa. Financial conditions and the U.S. deciding to embargo ag products to Russia because of their invasion of Afghanistan were the one-two punch to rural. Some farm families stopped being farm families. Families moved to urban areas for opportunity. Fewer families in places like and between Orient and Macksburg were the result. At a regional school administrator meeting I was at in in southwest Iowa in 1999, comments made implied rural America was still feeling the impacts of the 1980s.
Forty years later, and there are many more factors now, but I wonder if we are still seeing the impact of the 1980s. Some school districts are switching to four day weeks with hopes of being a bit more financially stronger. One day less of running buses, serving lunch and so on does add up. Another reason is to maybe attract staff and retain them longer.
Now, we are facing smaller families, regardless of where they live. Birth rates in America have been on a steady decline the past 15 years. Depending upon source and definition, stories show the average is 2, at the most, per child-bearing woman. One I've seen has it to 1.6. Sixty years ago, it was common to see 5.
Even the child-bearing years can be broken down. That may put more pressure on women who are mid 20s to mid 30s, arguably the most common age frame to have a child. That effect of a declining birthrate will eventually be seen in daycares, early grades in school. Later, on the other end of the spectrum, will there be enough people paying into Social Security? Daycare's problems of being short staffed with a long waiting list may eventually fix itself.
During the past Iowa legislative session, Sen. Tom Shipley said there is no problem having more people can't fix.
