North Cedar Community School District
The North Cedar School District is a public school district in Cedar County, Iowa. Based in Stanwood, the district spans northern Cedar County, and serves the communities of Stanwood, Mechanicsville, Clarence and Lowden, and the surrounding rural areas. A K-12 school district, North Cedar serves about 1,000 students.
North Cedar consists of four schools: elementary schools in Lowden and Mechanicsville, a middle school in Clarence and the high school in Stanwood. The district is governed by a five-member board of directors, which meets monthly at the middle school media center in Clarence.
The school district is accredited by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools and the Iowa Department of Education.
Athletics
North Cedar High School sports teams are known as the Knights; their uniforms display the school's colors of purple and teal.
The school fields athletic teams in 13 sports, including:
- Summer: Baseball and softball.
- Fall: Football, volleyball, and boys' and girls' cross country.
- Winter: Boys' and girls' basketball and wrestling.
- Spring: Boys' and girls' track and field; and boys' and girls' golf.
Outdoor sports, such as football, track and field, baseball and softball, are played at the high school site in Stanwood. The indoor sports of volleyball, basketball and wrestling, take place at the middle school in Clarence.
North Cedar High School is classified as a 2A school (Iowa's second-smallest tier schools), according to the Iowa High School Athletic Association and Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union; in sports where there are fewer divisions, the Knights are in either the smallest or middle classes, depending on the sport (e.g., Class 2A for wrestling). The school is a member of the eight-team Cedar Valley Conference (CVC), which comprises similar-sized schools from communities in eastern Iowa, spanning roughly the Iowa City area to the west, to Durant on the east. Prior to joining the CVC in 2008, North Cedar was a member of the Big East Conference, which consisted of Class 1A and 2A schools from east central Iowa.
North Cedar enjoys its biggest rivalries with neighboring school, Tipton, and also with the West Branch Bears.