Oskaloosa School Board Approves Updated Director Districts

The Oskaloosa School Board voted on Tuesday to adopt the new Decennial Director Redistricting Plan

Oskaloosa, Iowa – With a deadline fast approaching from the Iowa Secretary of State, the Oskaloosa School District approved the new director district plan at a noon special meeting.

These districts are redrawn, with the aid of an outside consultant, based upon the most recent census. Each district must be within 10%, of the same population size, of each other to offer equal representation in the district.

With the new plan, several members will be representing new districts. For example, Charlie Comfort who was elected as director for district 4 will now be moving to district 3. To complicate things further, two current board members Tom Richardson and Lin Yoder will both now reside in district 5. If Yoder, whose term is up first decides not to run, then Richardson would stay in office. But if Yoder decides to seek re-election to the board, he and Richardson would face-off in next years election, even though Richardson’s term would not yet be expired.

One other idea, that has started to be talked about as a future move, could be to make all the districts at-large versus the current director district format. This would eliminate the current issue of redistricting every 10 years with the census.

With a roll call vote, Boxler, Yoder, Comfort and Richardson voted in favor of the plan.

From here, the plan is sent to the Iowa Secretary of State for final approval and adoption.