CAL BOE sets January date for decision on whole grade sharing

Board to ponder keeping CAL K-5 or K-6
     After several months of intensive meetings and budget workshops with board members and school administrators, a decision on whole grade sharing is imminent between CAL and the Hampton-Dumont School Districts.
     What started out in 2016 as tax increases for the CAL district, has resolved itself to complete high school sharing with H-D.
     Current propositions on the table for CAL are keeping K-5 or K-6 in the CAL building, while remaining grades in both scenarios would attend H-D. Shared Superintendent Todd Lettow said that either scenario would lead to the district having a better debt solvency ratio, to guarantee that CAL keeps a school for the next several years.
     When word came down from an Iowa School Finance Information Services (ISFIS) report in February, it found that the district was spending approximately $300,000 annually from its unspent budget reserves. At that time, there would be no money left to run the district in four years. ISFIS Representative Larry Sigel at the time said that it wasn’t the fault of the CAL district, rather that the district did not have enough students to fund the costs.
    Read the full article in the December 21 edition of the Hampton Chronicle.