Dubuque, Iowa — The Dubuque Community School District Board of Education convened its regular monthly meeting Monday at 5:30 p.m. in The Forum boardroom at 2300 Chaney Road, with the district’s proposed school consolidation looming over the evening. The grassroots group “DCSD: Before We Decide” had urged supporters to register for public-comment slots, email board members, and sign its petition asking the board to slow the process.
One of the speakers, Amanda Staade — a mother of two district students, Washington PTO vice president, and member of the district’s external community task force — posted her full remarks after the meeting. She told the board that after seven months and roughly 22 hours of task-force meetings, the outcome felt settled in advance, writing that the result appeared “predetermined long before the task force was assembled.”
Staade said current fifth graders, including her daughter, could face four school transitions in five years under the district’s third consolidation scenario — Washington for sixth grade, Roosevelt for seventh, Hempstead for eighth and ninth, then Senior for tenth through twelfth. She raised transportation worries, including a 35- to 40-minute daily round trip to Roosevelt and ongoing complaints about late or overcrowded buses, and said the instability could weigh on students’ academics and well-being. She urged the board to pause, study other options, and avoid what she described as an education desert in central, downtown, and north-end Dubuque — while acknowledging that falling enrollment means the district cannot simply keep things as they are.
The testimony highlighted a divided community. In a pre-meeting post, another district parent urged residents to speak in favor of the third scenario, arguing it would improve programming and student supports, while conceding the decision timeline feels rushed.
The backdrop: the district is weighing three scenarios to trim operating costs by roughly $17 million by 2030-31. Every scenario closes Jefferson Middle School after the 2027-28 school year; two would also close Washington. The third — which both the internal staff group and the external task force appear to lean toward — would make Roosevelt a sixth- and seventh-grade center and split grades 8-12 across the two high schools. The district has already approved about $30 million in bonds backed by existing SAVE sales-tax revenue to expand and remodel Roosevelt, after a larger general-obligation bond failed in November 2025.