The North Scott School District is a rural

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...

school district A school district is a special-purpose district that operates local public primary and secondary schools in various nations. North America United States In the U.S, most K–12 public schools function as units of local school districts, wh ...

in Scott County,

Iowa Iowa () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wisconsin to the northeast, Illinois to the ...

. Based in Eldridge, it spans in northern Scott County, and serves the cities of Eldridge, Dixon,

Donahue Donahue is the Americanized version of Irish surname Donohoe, which, in turn, is an Anglicized version of the ancient Irish name "Donnchadh" (sometimes "Donncha"). Donncha was a common “first name” in 9th Century Ireland, and when the use of ...

, Long Grove, Maysville, McCausland,

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ni ...

, a portion of northern Davenport, and the surrounding rural areas.

History

Because of its central location in the new district, Eldridge was selected as the site for a new junior-senior high school building. The southwest corner of LeClaire Road and South First Street, at the time the east edge of town. Construction began in 1957, and was completed in time for the 1958-1959 school year. North Scott's first superintendent was Charles Hahn; the first high school principal was Melvin Heiler. Heiler would succeed Hahn in 1964 and guided the district through a period of great growth during the late 1960s and 1970s. He retired in 1980, a year after a successful push for the construction of a 900-seat fine arts auditorium at the high school. Elementary students in kindergarten through sixth grades continued to attending either rural one-room schoolhouses in various parts of the county (or if they lived in town, an older school building). Students assigned to a particular building depending their grade level and where they lived in the district. By 1961, district leaders began the first of several attempts to pass a bond issue to replace these older school buildings with modern elementary schools. After several failed attempts, voters finally approved a measure in July 1965 to build four elementary buildings: one each in Eldridge,

, Long Grove and

. The elementary buildings were completed by 1967, with each of them named after

astronauts An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally r ...

(in paying homage to the space program). The older school buildings were either converted for private uses or abandoned. North Scott's enrollment continued to surge in the early 1970s, with several district buildings receiving additions to accommodate this growth. A new junior high building was erected in Eldridge in 1975 (and opened in January 1976), while another elementary school building - in the fast-growing Park View - opened in the late summer of 1976. Several major additions have been completed to the high school through the years, most notably an auxiliary gymnasium in 1971, a fine arts

auditorium An auditorium is a room built to enable an audience to hear and watch performances. For movie theatres, the number of auditoria (or auditoriums) is expressed as the number of screens. Auditoria can be found in entertainment venues, community ...

in 1981, additional administrative offices in 1983, an expanded media center and

computer lab A computer lab is a space where computer services are provided to a defined community. These are typically public libraries and academic institutions. Generally, users must follow a certain user policy to retain access to the computers. This usu ...

s in 1987 and a new

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and

fine arts In European academic traditions, fine art is developed primarily for aesthetics or creative expression, distinguishing it from decorative art or applied art, which also has to serve some practical function, such as pottery or most metalwork ...

wing in 1999. Each of the elementary schools and the junior high also received numerous additions in the late 1990s. Dr. Tim Dose led the district as its

superintendent Superintendent may refer to: *Superintendent (police), Superintendent of Police (SP), or Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), a police rank *Prison warden or Superintendent, a prison administrator *Superintendent (ecclesiastical), a church exec ...

from 2001 until his unexpected death on July 1, 2008. During his seven-year tenure as the district's top administrator, he was credited for leading the district through tough financial times, punctuated with the layoff of several teachers to offset declining revenue. He had most recently been a driving force in advocating the renewal of the district's physical plant and equipment levy and 1-cent local option sales tax, special funding mechanisms which provide school districts with extra revenue for building, technology and infrastructure projects. Dr. Dennis Rucker, who had served school districts in Illinois and Iowa during the past 30 years, was named interim superintendent a month later. In March 2009, the school board named Jeff Schwiebert as its new superintendent. Schwiebert had served as superintendent of the Mount Vernon Community School District. During his time as superintendent, he oversaw the implementation of a facilities plan that included additions at the high school and several of the elementary schools, most notably a classroom and gymnasium addition at Ed White Elementary in Eldridge. That plan came into being after voters rejected an earlier proposal that included a second elementary school in Eldridge; there had been considerable community debate on the need for the second Eldridge elementary school and its possible impact on outlying schools. Schwiebert announced his retirement in January 2014, and two months later, Joe Stutting, who had been superintendent of the Sturgeon Bay (Wisconsin) School District, was named superintendent.Campbell, Scott, "NS finds its man: School board to hire Camanche native Joe Stutting as next superintendent," ''North Scott Press'', March 12, 2014. Accessed 03-12-2014

/ref> Early in Stutting's tenure, a major expansion of Ed White Elementary School in Eldridge was completed. Other superintendents during North Scott's history were Robert "Bear" Stevens (1980–1984), Douglas Otto (1984–1987) and Pascal V. "Pat" DeLuca (1987–2001).

List of schools

High School

North Scott High School North Scott High School is a suburban public four-year comprehensive high school located in Eldridge, Iowa. The school is part of the North Scott Community School District, and has an enrollment of approximately 1,000 students in grades 9 throug ...

, 200 S. First St., Eldridge.

Junior High School

* North Scott Junior High School, 502 S. Fifth St., Eldridge.

Elementary schools

* Alan Shepard Elementary School, 220 W. Grove St., Long Grove * Edward White Elementary School, 121 S. Fifth St., Eldridge * John Glenn Elementary School, 308 N. Main St.,

* Neil Armstrong Elementary School, 212 S. Park View Drive, Park View * Virgil Grissom Elementary School, 500 Lost Grove Road,

Facts and figures

Enrollment

References

* Eldridge Centennial Committee, "Eldridge, Iowa: 100 years, 1871-1971." * "N. Scott District formed in 1956 is largest in Iowa," ''The Observer'', DeWitt, Iowa, Centennial ed., July 1964.

External links

North Scott School District - Official site
{{Authority control School districts in Iowa Education in Scott County, Iowa 1956 establishments in Iowa School districts established in 1956