Sioux City School Board approves $1.5M plan to construct permanent home for district’s online academy

SIOUX CITY (KTIV) - The Sioux City Community School Board has approved a more than $1.5 million plan to build a permanent home for the district’s virtual education academy.

The school board approved the plan Monday night with a vote of 5-2.

Right now, the “Virtual Institute for Brighter Education,” also known as VIBE Academy, operates out of leased space in the Ho-Chunk Centre in downtown Sioux City. With the plan passing, the VIBE academy’s new facilities will be built inside the school district’s Education Service Center. The funds themselves will come from the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund, or ESSER, which are federal funds meant to address the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on students.

This year, school officials say the VIBE Academy has 475 students from within the Sioux City Community School District learning in a virtual environment.

Planners say one advantage of this plan is that the academy would be built in a space the district already owns. Over the next ten years, the cost to lease space for the VIBE Academy, in the Ho-Chunk Centre, would total approximately $1.49 million.

KTIV’s Emily Schrad is at Monday night’s board meeting, she’ll have the latest tonight on KTIV News 4 at Ten.

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