List of school districts in Iowa


This is a list of school districts in Iowa, sorted by Area Education Agencies.
Districts are listed by their official names, though several schools use "Schools" in their name or website rather than "Community School District".
, this list has not been expanded to include former school districts.
School districts have several classifications. They are counted as separate governments by the U.S. Census Bureau. Iowa has no school systems dependent on another layer of government.

Background

In the early 1900s the state had 4,873 school districts. The state government passed the Consolidated School of Law of 1906 and this figure fell to 4,863 in 1908, 4,839 in 1922, and 4,558 in 1953. That year some additional laws were passed that contributed to reducing this further, and so this fell further to 458 as of July 1, 1965; that year another law made providing a high school mandatory for a school district, which meant school districts that had one room schoolhouses were required to consolidate. The deadline for such mergers to be finalized was April 1, 1966, with mergers themselves to occur on July 1 of that year.
By July 1, 1980, the number of districts was down to 443. In 1984, there were 437 school districts in the state that operated high schools. In 1990 the total number of school districts was 430. In fall 1995 the number of school districts operating high schools was down to 353, and in 1995 670 was the median enrollment K-12 of an Iowa school district. An Iowa Department of Education consultant named Guy Ghan referred to the 1990s school district mergers as the "third wave".
The total number of school districts was 365 on July 1, 2005. In the 2016–2017 school year there were 333 school districts, an 11% decrease from the same figure in 2000.
Circa the 1980s school districts began agreements to share resources, such as particular employees, or "whole grade sharing". In 2005 Tom Vilsack, the Governor of Iowa, proposed that requirements for school districts to have certain numbers of students or sharing employees as ways of reducing local government spending, though Vilsack never enacted those requirements. In 2007 Josh Nelson of The Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier wrote that "Lately, consolidation hasn't been as big of an issue compared to previous years."
By 2016 population losses in rural areas have fueled further school district consolidations. By 2017 there had been school districts that had formed from different generations of school consolidations. By 2024, there were 325 public school districts.

Central Rivers AEA

Black Hawk County

Bremer County

Buchanan County

Butler County

Cerro Gordo County

Chickasaw County

Floyd County

Franklin County

Grundy County

Hancock County

Hardin County

Marshall County

Mitchell County

Poweshiek County

Tama County

Winnebago County

Worth County

Wright County

Grant Wood AEA

Benton County

Cedar County

Iowa County

Johnson County

Jones County

Linn County

Washington County

Great Prairie AEA

Appanoose County

Davis County

Des Moines County

Henry County

Jefferson County

Keokuk County

Lee County

Louisa County

Lucas County

Mahaska County

Monroe County

Van Buren County

Wapello County

Wayne County

Green Hills AEA

Adair County

Adams County

Carroll County

Cass County

Clarke County

Decatur County

Fremont County

Harrison County

Mills County

Montgomery County

Page County

Pottawattamie County

Ringgold County

Shelby County

Taylor County

Union County

Wayne County

Heartland AEA

Audubon County

Boone County

Carroll County

Dallas County

Guthrie County

Jasper County

Madison County

Marion County

Polk County

Shelby County

Story County

Warren County

Keystone AEA

Allamakee County

Chickasaw County

Clayton County

Delaware County

Dubuque County

Fayette County

Howard County

Winneshiek County

Mississippi Bend AEA

Cedar County

Clinton County

Jackson County

Louisa County

Muscatine County

Scott County

Northwest AEA

Cherokee County

Crawford County

Ida County

Lyon County

Monona County

O'Brien County

Osceola County

Plymouth County

Sioux County

Woodbury County

Prairie Lakes AEA

Buena Vista County

Calhoun County

Clay County

Dickinson County

Emmet County

Greene County

Hamilton County

Humboldt County

Kossuth County

Palo Alto County

Pocahontas County

Sac County

Webster County

Wright County