March 31, 1983. Collins, Maxwell schools agree to merge. The first of many meetings began on Monday, January 18 to discuss the futures of the Collins and Maxwell schools. The first meeting held was a joint meeting held on Monday night in the Collins School library to discuss the future of the sharing program between the two schools. For the school year 1981-82 a limited sharing program between the high schools and the two districts was being used. At that time, a decision was made if the sharing program was to continue. A decision, without a formal vote, of combining the 6th through 8th grades of both districts to go to one building and combining 9th through 12th grades go to another building. Academic programs be combined, but activity programs for the high school students be separate.
Dates were set for public meetings, with February 2 for the Maxwell meeting and February 3 for the Collins meeting. Supt. John Nicholls of Collins and Patrick Sullivan of Maxwell reported that there had been virtually no problems with the sharing program to date.
Then at a February 24 meeting the Collins school board made the announcement that it would be necessary for the Collins school to reorganize with Maxwell. It was felt that Collins could no longer support an adequate school system by itself.
A vote was given to the residents of the two school districts. The vote was overwhelming approval to the consolidation of the two schools into one unit in an election held on Tuesday, May 11. Maxwell voters voted 383 towards the merger with 25 voting against it. In Collins 275 approved the merger with 81 "no" votes being cast. The final consolidation will take effect in the 1983-84 school year.
March 31, 1983. Old wooden bridge to be removed soon. Back in August of 1982 the residents of Maxwell and Collins petitioned for removal of the old wooden bridge located two miles east of Maxwell on Highway 210 over where the old Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul railroads once traveled. The railroad is gone and the townspeople wanted the bridge to go, too.
With the hard work of a number of people from both towns, the DOT was presented a proposal from a committee to remove the bridge before the next school year rolls around. The bridge will be torn down and the highway straightened out. The wood beam bridge that was build in 1900 is scheduled to be torn down and the road straightened, beginning June 1 and is scheduled to be completed the latter part of July. The proposed project involves removal of the bridge, lowering the grade and construction of a new roadway on a straightened alignment.
April 15, 1983. A recent study by Iowa State University Student Affairs research office concluded that, on the average, the size of the high school as student graduated from doesn't have anything to do with how well a student does at ISU. The best predictors of a student's academic success are scores in standardized admission tests and rank in graduating class. This restates a well-know finding -- that the best predictors of future success are measures of past success.