Baxter School Board plans to take action on CMB partnership Monday

BAXTER — Wednesday night’s community meeting about the CMB partnership and Baxter’s financial health resulted in setting a special school board meeting for Monday when action is likely to be taken in regard to the district’s relationship with Collins-Maxwell.

Near the end of the 90-minute discussion that had several community members voicing opinions about the damaged CMB partnership and Baxter’s future, superintendent Todd Martin said the board will soon have a decision on the way it wants to go, which boils down to four options that were laid out for the public.

Option one is to continue the current CMB athletic sharing agreement and set a firm timeline for exploring whole-grade and operational sharing with its partner. The second option is to continue the relationship with Collins-Maxwell and explore the regional school concept — a direction in which the Collins-Maxwell Board of Education has shown interest.

Baxter’s school board is in favor of option one, but said they have not felt the commitment from the Collins-Maxwell board to maintain a reasonable timeline for whole grade sharing by 2018-19.

That has led to two other options for Baxter — parting ways with Collins-Maxwell after the 2016-17 school year and either stand alone as a small rural district or seek another partner.

Martin said in an interview Wednesday he expects a decision to be made about Baxter’s future at Monday’s special meeting.

“We’d like to be making significant progress shortly,” Martin said. “I think the board heard what they needed to hear from the community. At some point we have to make decisions because that’s the foundation in which we’re going to grow. Right now, we feel like we’re not growing, and we need to be.”

Board member Colette Kunkel agreed with Martin that a decision on whether or not to continue a relationship with Collins-Maxwell needs to be made soon.

“We will be making a decision on June 6. That is our goal — to make a decision then,” Kunkel said to the crowd Wednesday. “Before this meeting tonight we kind of already came up with a decision, but again this is why we had this meeting because we want to hear from all of you.”

After the meeting, Kunkel, board member Debbie Meyer and board president Jon Northrup said the comments from the public Wednesday just reinforced what the board believed was best for Baxter.

Comments during the hour-long forum included questions about the financial benefits of whole grade sharing, is Collins-Maxwell even wanting to whole grade share, and if Baxter can even survive by itself for a few years.

At the beginning of the meeting Martin reviewed Baxter’s finances with the audience and said the district is currently healthy, but would like to continue moving forward.

Baxter had more than 90 students open enroll into the district in 2015, which put it in the top 1 percent of Iowa schools. The district also has a solid solvency ratio of 25 percent — well above the 10 percent target — and has seen its debt drop from $3,745,000 to $1,175,000 since 2008.

Whole grade and operational sharing with another school district would help improve the financial health by splitting the salary of some teachers and administrators, and also receiving additional funding from the state.

In regard to sharing with Collins-Maxwell, Baxter resident Carey Petermeier said the CMB partnership has been a great one over the years and he’s all for making it work, but he wouldn’t be comfortable moving forward with a school district that hasn’t shown interest in Baxter and has a history of looking elsewhere for partnerships.

He also showed concern about some division between the Collins and Maxwell communities and referred back to a Collins town hall meeting that was held last month.

“I’m struggling with our partners,” Petermeier said. “There’s a vocal group in Collins that’s very, very ready to pull away from Maxwell. That bothers me moving into a future with (Collins-Maxwell).”

Collins resident Rich Maxwell attended Wednesday night’s meeting in Baxter’s west gymnasium and encouraged the community to help the boards move toward whole grade sharing.

“I believe option one is the best option for everyone,” Maxwell said. “I think there’s a small group of ‘squeaky-wheels’ in the Collins-Maxwell system that’s pushing this regional idea, which I disagree with. But it’s time to jump back into the game and we need to help our boards. I’m willing to talk to people in Baxter to get things moving forward.”

Nearly 30 people spoke up at the meeting including Baxter Principal Rob Luther, teacher Jason Aker, councilman Steve Wright and several other members of the community.

Continuing the CMB partnership and, eventually, whole grade sharing was the favorite direction among community members Wednesday night, but if Collins-Maxwell isn’t wanting to commit then many said it would be best for Baxter to look at options three and four.

Luther, who is also the head coach of the CMB varsity football team, said option three — to separate from Collins-Maxwell and stand alone as a singular entity — shouldn’t be overlooked.

“Don’t sell us short on option three. When you’re plus 90 (in open enrollment) and you look at other districts our size heading a lot quicker down a slope, you know we’re doing a lot of good things.” Luther said. “I agree with Rich. Our best option is option number one. That’s our partner and I feel that’ll always be our partner, but we can’t keep pulling them to the dance floor.”

Slideshows and a video from the community meeting can be found on the Baxter CSD website and Facebook page.

The Monday meeting is scheduled to take place inside the school’s board meeting room at 7 p.m.

Contact Alex Olp at aolp@jaspercountytribune.com