The Benton Community School District, or Benton Community, is a rural public school district headquartered in Van Horne, Iowa. The district is mostly in Benton County with portions in Iowa and Tama counties. It comprises seven rural municipalities: Van Horne, Atkins, Blairstown, Elberon, Keystone, Newhall, and Norway. It also serves Watkins; additional students come from Marengo, and Garrison. Dr. Pamela Ewell was hired as superintendent in 2019, after previous positions as superintendent at Mount Vernon and Van Buren County Schools.

History

A consolidated school board from Keystone, Van Horne, Newhall and Blairstown met from 1962 to 1964 for the planning of the consolidated BCSD, which was officially formed in July 1964. In 1988, Benton Community joined the WaMaC Conference after the Eastern Iowa conference was disbanded. The Norway school district merged into the Benton district on July 1, 1995. The schools themselves consolidated earlier in a grade-sharing arrangement in the fall of 1991. From this consolidation, the movie The Final Season portrayed the final state title of the Norway High School baseball team.

Schools