Greene County and Paton-Churdan School Boards met Wednesday for their yearly full board meeting.

The meeting started with a presentation on the bond referendum and regional academy with Chris Deal and Sid Jones. Jones said for the regional academy to be an option for Iowa Central Community College, there needs to be at least 60 students taking classes. Contact has been made with seven surrounding school districts, within a 30-mile radius, who have shown an interest in the idea. Those districts include: Paton-Churdan, Glidden-Ralston, Ogden, Guthrie Center, Panorama, Southeast Valley and Coon Rapids-Bayard. Deal said the academy could also push new industry into Greene County with a software developer in Des Moines who is looking to invest a new facility in rural Iowa.

Following the presentation, Greene County School Board President Dr. Mark Peters asked the P-C Board to support the regional academy. No formal action was taken by the P-C Board.

The two boards then reviewed their current sharing agreements. The current contract is that for every P-C student that takes a class at the high school in Jefferson, the Greene County School District receives an average of $333 per student, per period, per trimester. Last school year, Greene County received $139,399 from P-C. Both districts also share athletics and share three teacher positions with the media specialist, band and middle school math.

The next agenda item that was briefly discussed was communication and relationships. Outside of meeting as the full boards, there is a smaller committee that also meets in June every year.

The final discussion item was future sharing opportunities. One concern that was voiced was if the bond referendum passes in April, there might be scheduling conflicts if high school students choose to take the academy classes, those are only offered in the morning. An idea was discussed about possibly having any P-C student that takes academy classes, stay in the Greene County School District for the entire day. Another concern that was brought up is transportation issues with the academy scheduling. P-C Superintendent Kreg Lentsch said he understands the bigger picture in that if the day comes to having to consolidate with Greene County, it’ll be because P-C can no longer serve and give students the quality education they need. However, he said if that day comes, having a positive and smooth relationship, like they currently do with Greene County, will hopefully make that transition easier.