A mediation meeting between two school boards in Iowa yielded no solutions to the dispute over the location of middle school students in the coming school year. It did, however, bring to the fore other conflicts, including disagreements over teacher career paths, location of athletic events, and where vocational tech classes would be taught.

The two districts have been forced by budget shortfalls to work together to determine a schedule of building closures and reductions in staff. The School Budget Review Committee (SBRC) is requiring the Hamburg and Farragut School Boards to submit “viable” budgets by the end of January. Previous informal meetings between the boards had not yielded a plan, so mediation was sought as a way of guiding the two sides towards an agreement.

Hamburg Superintendent Terry Kenealy prepared a clear proposal that outlined splitting students between the two districts and suggesting staff reductions at each district and other solutions. But while the Farragut school board was amenable to many of these proposals and even acknowledged that their share of the budget reductions should be higher because their shortfall was larger, the Hamburg board refused to agree to the settlement of the middle school students in the Farragut district.

The meeting ended on a positive note, however, with the superintendents from each district agreeing to create a written plan to present to both boards prior to the SBRC’s deadline. There is no time to arrange a second mediation, so the boards will have to agree on a plan on their own or be in violation of the law.