Across the country, Cedar Rapids’ George Washington High School was known as one of the best high schools in the nation. Multiple publications noted the school’s success, with Newsweek highlighting them as one of America’s Best High Schools every year from 2003-2012. Throughout the early 2000’s this was a common occurrence, with U.S. News & World Report and The Washington Post both recognizing the school as one of the best in the country and number one in the state. None of this recognition was accidental. Former principal Dr. Ralph Plagman stated his goals during that time saying,
However, over the years Washington has lost its position, dropping from number one in the state to 179th out of 317, according to U.S. News & World Report. Additionally, success in Washington athletics has dropped drastically with 57.9% of the school’s Mississippi Valley Championships, State Appearances & Championships all occurring within the years 2000-2012 and only 5% occurring between the years 2020-2025.
Dr. Plagman was the principal of Washington High School during its most successful years. Plagman worked at the school for 35 years, and over that time, he accumulated a faculty that was very established. Robert Throndson has worked as a math teacher at Washington High School for the past 26 years and he noted the influence Plagman had saying,
“Every summer he memorized every single freshman’s name. So when you walked into the building as a freshman, he could say “Hi!” and your name, and he knew what activities you were in, and he made that a priority to know not only the students what their activities were so he could watch you.”
Since Plagman resigned in 2016 there have been four principals over the past nine years, and many of the faculty recognize the effect this has had on the Washington community. Plagman commented on Washington’s principals turnover saying, “In my mind, there are not a lot of people who can be successful principals in Washington High School, it takes a unique set of skills and interests.” Current Washington Principal Ian LeMaster said, “It’s hard to gain traction on some of those things like Dr. Plagman did because he was here for thirty [plus] years.”
One of the major components of Washington’s recognized success was its Advanced Placement Course (AP) participation numbers. Many of the publications writing about Washington High School based their rankings on the AP Index (the ratio of AP exams taken by students of any grade divided by the number of its graduating seniors). During Dr. Plagman’s time as principal, he heavily pushed AP classes for his students. Throndson emphasized Plagman’s push for AP courses saying, “Doctor Plagman would literally pull you out of class and talk to you in the hallway and say, ‘I see you’re taking three AP classes. You’re not signed up for any tests. Can we get you signed up for 1 or 2 of them right now?’ And then he would take care of the process. So he knew about that index and he cared about that index.”
In subsequent years Washington High School lost its spot as number one in Iowa for the AP index. Throndson attributed this to school administration changes, saying, “The subsequent principals came into an environment, I’m not sure they were fully prepared for, or I don’t think they were explained to.”
Washington High School has also expanded the college and career opportunities it has for students. In previous years, AP classes were the only options for career/college readiness; now, Washington provides a variety of Kirkwood and trades-focused courses along with AP courses, changing the focus of some students.
Late Superintendent Noreen Bush responded to Washington’s drop on the AP Index saying to the Gazette in 2019, “Although maybe our percentages have fallen somewhat, I wouldn’t say it’s because we discount it. We want to continue to celebrate and offer it – we just want kids to have multiple exposures to lots of things.”
Plagman responded to the district deemphasizing AP courses by saying, “I can’t for the life of me see why that would be? Why anything would have changed that wouldn’t make advanced placement good. I don’t know why the district has drifted away from it [Advanced Placement Courses].”
Over the years as Washington has declined in the school rankings, new schools have risen in its place, with schools like Linn-Mar, Prairie, and Johnson County schools rising in both academic and athletic success. Associate Principal and Activities Director Grant Schultz explains this growth among other schools saying, “Some of these schools, they’re growing schools. Any time a school system is growing, that brings in new money, which also allows you to do more things, build new facilities, new football stadiums, new gyms, new schools.” Lemaster also responded to the rapid growth of other schools stating, “We just haven’t caught up, because usually it’s bonds that pass those sorts of things and we just haven’t had a bond pass for a long time.”
With the new voucher program Iowa passed in 2023, families have a choice of where they take their students. These new facilities at other schools have attracted Cedar Rapids Community School District (CRCSD) students, with around 3000 students leaving the district since COVID-19, according to LeMaster. Throndson describes the effects this has on athletes at the school:
Even compared to the other schools in the CRCSD, Washington falls last in enrollment after Kennedy and Jefferson, with Kennedy having double the students Washington has. Unlike Kennedy and Jefferson, Washington is landlocked and unable to grow and develop existing land around the school. LeMaster defines what that means for Washington saying, “We will have a harder time growing unless we can entice or offer something that other schools in our area do not have.”
This poses a major problem for the district as the general school fund is based on enrollment with each student securing a certain dollar amount, and fewer students means less money coming to the district. Less money means fewer opportunities to set Washington apart. Since the number of students has decreased and the number of teachers has stayed relatively the same, LeMaster states this is resulting in a deficit.
Retired choir director Peter Westphalen, who taught from 2011 to 2024, opened up about changes in funding for school activities after the district made a policy that students could not be charged for participating in activities, saying, “This policy change greatly affected the budgets of all the CR schools, making it increasingly difficult to provide students with the best educational support items.”
However, the biggest impact on the school’s day-to-day funds are the booster groups, like the Patrons of the Performing Arts (PPA) and Warrior Connect (Washington’s PTA). “Parents had good input during the time [I was principal],” said Plagman. “Early in my 35 years there, we started PPA that became immensely strong, probably still unprecedented in Iowa for the financial support for fine arts, but also emotional support.” This sentiment was reflected by Mr. LeMaster saying, “Over time I’ve just seen less parent involvement,” said LeMaster. “From what I’ve heard— particularly when [Dr.] Ralph [Plagman] was here, there was a lot of involvement; but he was also here for three decades, so he had a lot of time to build that up. It sounds like a lot of that involvement kind of dipped once he left.”
When looking at the decline of the school’s athletic and activity success, Throndson argues that participation is a bigger factor than funding saying, “I would think the larger contributing factor is our participation numbers, not necessarily the funding. Look at Kennedy. If their enrollment is double ours and we get 25 kids out for varsity football, they’re probably going to have 50 or they might have 60, and all of a sudden now we’re not comparing apples to apples.”
In the past, it was the norm for Washington students to participate in many activities, with it not being unusual for students to fill all eight of their periods plus take a class in the morning. A major drop in participation hit Washington High School after COVID-19 when the school changed its schedule format from eight periods a day to block scheduling with eight classes, four alternating every other day. Westphelan commented on the drop, saying, “When we switched to block scheduling, many students wanted to have at least one period open in their schedule, elective classes took a huge hit in enrollment.”
“We have some really good athletes walking through the hallways at Wash who never go out for show choir or never go out for a sport,” said Throndson. “If they went out for either of those things, they would be really good and they would help us as a team.”
The Cedar Rapids Community School District hopes to strengthen the entire district over the next few years, implementing proposed academies to set Washington High School as well as the entire district apart from other schools. “If you don’t do something else you’re going to risk more kids going away,” says LeMaster. All of this is being done to entice students who have moved to schools outside of the district to consider re-enrolling in the CRCSD.
For Washington to move up the rankings, they need to meet certain standards set by the state of Iowa. “Some of those metrics changed even this year, and they didn’t tell us they were going to change, they just changed them and that’s one of the reasons we’re down at 117,” said Throndson. “That’s one of the reasons the district is moving towards academies is because it automatically checks off those metrics.” One of Washington’s lowest scores in career readiness is because the school doesn’t have a lot of job shadows or internships. “In academies, it’s expected you to do a job shadow by the time you’re a junior, you will have an internship, and so those are just built into that model so that metric will shoot sky high once we’ve done that,” Throndson said.
