Riverside Community 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 ''Öffentlichk ...

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 ...

headquartered in

Carson, Iowa Carson is a city in Pottawattamie County, Iowa, United States. The population was 766 at the 2020 census. History Carson was formed in 1881 as a result of the establishment of a depot on the Burlington and Rock Island Railroad at this location d ...

, within the district's grade 3-5 facility. - The name "Riverside Intermediate School" appears in the image. The district, entirely in Pottawattamie County, and serves Carson, Oakland, Macedonia and the surrounding rural areas. The schools teams are the Bulldogs, and the colors are navy and gold.

History

The district formed on July 1, 1993, with the merger of the Carson-Macedonia and Oakland districts. Circa 2004, Jim Sutton became the superintendent. Before 2012 the district attempted to get two school bonds to replace the high school but voters rejected both measures. Sutton in 2012 asked voters to accept another proposal. A bond valued $15.1 million finally passed in June 2013, with Sutton expressing gratitude. 1,096 voters, including 367 absentee voters approved the measure; as there were 1,805 voters total, including 501 absentee voters, the approval percentage was slightly higher than the 60% necessary to pass the bond. Sutton left his position in 2016 to work at the Belle Plaine Unified School District 357, citing proximity to his family. Timothy Mitchell, previously the superintendent of Rapid City Area Schools, became superintendent of Riverside in 2016.

Schools

Riverside Elementary School is in Oakland, and the Riverside Community Intermediate School is in Carson. The Riverside grade 6-12 Middle-High School is south of Oakland in an

unincorporated area An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

, in proximity to the junction of Highway 6 and Highway 59. Construction began on this building in April 2014, which had delays due to summer weather. Previously the high school was in the city of Oakland. Previously there was a 4-5 school in Macedonia.

Riverside Community High School

Athletics

The Bulldogs compete in the

Western Iowa Conference The Western Iowa Conference is a high school athletic conference made up of bigger 1A and smaller 2A schools located mostly in the greater Council Bluffs area. The teams in the conference have a deep-rooted history together. Most of the schools ...

in the following sports: *Cross Country *Volleyball *Football *Basketball *Wrestling ** 1996 Class 1A State Champions *Track and Field *Golf *Soccer *Baseball *Softball

December 12, 2017, Oakland, Iowa, school bus fire

On December 12, 2017, a school bus owned and operated by the District was involved in a road run-off event and subsequent fire near

Oakland, Iowa Oakland is a city located along the West Nishnabotna River in Pottawattamie County, Iowa, United States. The population was 1,524 at the time of the 2020 census. Formerly named Big Grove, Oakland is home to Nishna Heritage Museum and a number o ...

. The crash occurred when a school bus driver turned from a rural gravel road onto a residential driveway for student pickup. After the student boarded the bus, the driver reversed out of the driveway and backed across the road continuing until the bus's rear wheels ran off the road. The bus came to rest with its rear half in a 3-foot-deep ditch next to the road. While the driver attempted to drive the bus out of the ditch, a fire began in the engine compartment and spread throughout the school bus. The driver and the only passenger – a female 16-year-old student – died when they did not egress from the burning bus. The accident was the subject of a lengthy National Transportation Safety Board investigation. That resulting investigation was highly critical of the District. Among his opening remarks at the June 18, 2019 Board hearing regarding the accident and the driver's impaired physical condition, Chairman Robert Sumwalt stated, " e Riverside Community School District had the knowledge it needed to act. It did not. In fact, in recent years, it had gone so far as to do away with physical performance tests for drivers." The final report identified the probably cause as, "(1) the driver’s failure to control the bus, backing it into a roadside ditch for reasons that could not be established; and (2) the failure of the Riverside Community School District to provide adequate oversight by allowing a driver to operate a school bus with a known physical impairment that limited his ability to perform emergency duties."NTSB Report HAR-19-01, School Bus Run-Off-Road and Fire. https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Pages/har1901.aspx

References

External links

Riverside Community School District
* {{authority control School districts in Iowa Education in Pottawattamie County, Iowa 1993 establishments in Iowa School districts established in 1993