Those of you interested in how the Greene County School District compares to the other 324 districts in Iowa should read “2026 Best School Districts in Iowa” put out by NICHE Best Schools.
The ranking is based on seven different grades – Academic grade, 50%; Teacher grade, 15%; Culture & diversity grade, 12.5%; Parent/student surveys on overall experience, 12.5%; Resource and facilities grade, 5%; Clubs & activities grade, 2.5%; and Sports grade, 2.5%.
The top three schools based on these grades are 1) Pleasant Valley – Bettendorf; 2) Gilbert; and 3) MOC Floyd Valley – Orange City.
Other schools’ rankings include Roland Story 11; South Hamilton 23; Carroll 42; Nevada 51; Ogden 64; Denison 95; Coon Rapids-Bayard 96; Paton-Churdan 106; and Ar-We-Va- Westside 123. After ranking the first 130 schools, no number ranking is assigned, meaning the school could be in the “embarrassing category” – below standards.
Greene County Community Schools got an overall grade of “C”. Math proficiency was 58% and reading was 70%. Other year rankings for GCCSD put us about 240th of 325 schools. I would guess that is about the way we ended for this report. That puts GCCSD in the bottom one-third in the state. No wonder we have parents “home schooling” their kids.
And should we throw more money at teachers’ salaries? The median household income in Greene County is $54,286. The average teacher makes $66,184 per year. Not a bad gig for only eight months of work!
And how important are sports when the weighted grade only makes up 2.5% of the total grade?
I ask that present and future school board candidates read this article on the internet, “2026 Best School Districts in Iowa.”
Denny Lautner, Jefferson
