New S.D. law keeps door open for Greater Hoyt

A bill currently making its way through the South Dakota Legislature will assure that students from the Greater Hoyt and Greater Scott School Districts in South Dakota will be able to attend school across the state's border in Iowa at Akron-Westfield and West Sioux Community Schools respectively.

According to Greg Heeren, president of the Greater Hoyt School Board, the bill, SF 174, passed out of the Senate committee on a 6-0 vote and passed on the Senate floor on a 34-0 vote.

The bill is scheduled for House committee action on Monday, but that could be pushed back due to members leaving the capital in Pierre a day early due to the weather, Heeren said.

"What the bill means for our kids is they will continue to go to Akron-Westfield Schools now and hereafter," Heeren said.

Residents of the Greater Hoyt School District have sent their students to school in Akron for 41 years.

In 2006, the South Dakota Legislature passed a law that was intended to consolidate districts with less than 100 students. That would have meant the district would have to merge with either neighboring Alcester-Hudson or Elk Point-Jefferson or become a part of each.

"What the current bill allows us to do is negotiate with the district we attach to and have the ability to fund our students pretty much the same as we always have," Heeren said.

Currently about 50 students residing in the Greater Hoyt District attend school in Akron.

It also recognizes the area of the Greater Hoyt district in the future, meaning anyone who moves onto that property would always have the ability to send their students to the Akron-Westfield Schools, Heeren explained.

"We can do this for a long, long time," Heeren said. "That's not to say that in 25 years it may change," he added, pointing to the suggestion by an Iowa legislator to consolidate schools in Iowa.

"If that ever comes to be, of course then things change," Heeren added. "None of us know if or when that could happen."

The SF 174 bill also grants the Greater Hoyt and Greater Scott districts a one year extension to July 1, 2010 to complete their reorganization plans. Other districts in South Dakota must have those plans in place by July 1, 2009.

"We felt this was the first time the Legislature and the Department of Education had given us anything to really work with as far as trying to keep our kids in Akron-Westfield Schools," Heeren said.

Heeren and other board members have worked hard to get the agreement in place.

For Heeren, who will end his term next year after serving 21 years on the board, it means seeing a goal achieved.

"I'd said this would be my last term," Heeren said. "I knew we would be going through this, and I stayed on."

"It's hard for people in other parts of the state to know how it works and why it works," Heeren said of the district's relationship with the Akron community and school district.

He gives the example that his telephone number is in the Akron phone directory, his letters are mailed to Akron and the Akron Fire Department serves property owners on the South Dakota side. Greater Hoyt families shop in Akron and many attend churches in the community.

"We're part of this community as if we lived on the other side of the river," he said.

the Big Sioux River forms the border between South Dakota and Iowa.