Area school board members, superintendents meet with legislators

​      Area legislators and Iowa Association of School Boards (IASB) staff present at the school board in-service meeting held on Thursday, Jan. 25 are show, from left: D.T. Magee, director of the IASB, Sen. Annette Sweeney, Senate District 27; Sen. Dawn Driscoll, Senate District 46; Rep. Helena Hayes, House District 88; Rep. Thomas Gerhold, House District 84 and Michelle Johnson, government relations director with the IASB.

By J.O. Parker
 
        The BGM and HLV School districts hosted a board in-service session at the Michael J. Manatt Community Center in Brooklyn on Thursday, Jan. 25. This is an annual event where area school superintendents and their board members are invited to take part in an open discussion with legislators representing each district.
      The event drew about 30 attendees included superintendents and board members from BGM, Belle Plaine, English Valleys, Grinnell-Newburg, HLV, Iowa Valley, Montezuma, North Mahaska, Tri-County and Williamsburg. Invited but not in attendance was Benton, Clear Creek-Amana, Keota and Lynnville-Sully representatives.
        The evening began with a pork loin dinner served by the Brooklyn Iowa Ruritan Club. Following dinner, there was a legislative forum. The legislators present were Sen. Annette Sweeney from Senate District 27, Sen. Dawn Driscoll from Senate District 46, Rep. Thomas Gerhold from House District 84 and Rep. Helena Hayes from House District 88.
     During this portion of the evening, superintendent and board members asked questions regarding proposed bills and their impact on schools. Some of the items discussed were state supplemental aid (which Gov. Reynolds has tentatively suggested setting at 2.5 percent), preschool programming (funding preschoolers fully, as well as providing flexibility to the 20:1 student to teacher ratio), open enrollment (revert back to setting deadlines and have a month waiting period to prevent students from going back and forth between districts).
        “We need to keep every kid we can get,” said Curt Rheingans, superintendent of Iowa Valley and English Valleys school districts. “We just need something to help us out.”
         Concerns over finding adequate staffing was discussed. Sen. Driscoll noted that education is not the only industry having trouble recruiting employees.
         “It is every single field,” she said.
       Also discussed was allowing the school start date to be the first Tuesday following the Iowa State Fair, rather than no sooner than Aug. 23, as well as the governor’s bill (HSB 542 and SSB 3073), which restructures AEAs and raises minimum starting teacher salaries to $50,000 (up from $33,500). 
        It is early in the session, so many new bills are being proposed, as well as amendments to the governor’s education study bills. The superintendents shared their concerns about losing AEA supports that assist not only students with disabilities, but also provide services for all students, teachers and districts. Appreciation was shown for efforts to increase starting teacher salaries to be competitive with other industries during this time of teacher shortage. The question from board members and superintendents, however, was whether districts will be able to afford it long term.
    “Concerns have run high since the Governor released her AEA's proposal,” noted Rep. Hayes. “My colleagues and I in the Iowa House have worked hard since then to discuss the bill details with our local district superintendents, school staff and board members along with parents who have received special education services. Personally, I have noticed three things that everyone in my district has agreed on: there is identifiable room for improvement in the AEA's, there are practical solutions to address specific problems and that the process needs to slow down. We all appreciate the large amount of input we are receiving; it clear that AEA's have a special place in Iowa's history.”
         “AEAs are vital to our school districts,” noted BGM and HLV superintendent Brad Hohensee.
     The state is required to submit a revised Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) Plan to the federal government. ESSA was signed into law in 2015, replacing No Child Left Behind. As part of this, the state created accountability measures and reports them out annually in the Iowa School Performance Profile. The state is considering changing the data points used in the report. One of the changes being proposed is using chronic absenteeism as a piece of data to rate schools.  Superintendents at the meeting shared that this data would not be something that districts would be able to control. Processes were shared as to how schools currently deal with students who do not attend at an appropriate rate, but oftentimes, even with efforts from schools, law enforcement and sometimes the county attorneys, the chronically absent still remain absent, drop out or transition to other schools or home schooling. Legislators were encouraged to advocate for that not being a factor included within the accountability for this profile.
         At the end of the evening, the Director of the Iowa Association of School Boards (IASB), D.T. Magee spoke about his organization’s goals and ongoing support of school boards and districts in Iowa. Along with him was the government relations director, Michelle Johnson, who spends most of her time at the Iowa Capitol advocating for school districts and their needs.  
      The meeting adjourned with legislators, administrators and board members looking forward to future opportunities to have our representatives and senators engaged in visiting schools to see teaching and learning in action. Working together, everyone present knows that they could help make a positive difference for the students of Iowa.
       “I really enjoyed getting feedback and having a good discussion,” said Sen. Driscoll in wrapping up the evening. “We are still waiting to see what the bill and amendments may look like, and then like every bill proposed here, it will start going through the legislative process so we can continue getting comments from Iowans. The goal of this legislation, like any education policy we look at, is to increase student achievement. I do appreciate the time everyone took to attend the meeting on Thursday so we could talk about these important issues.”
         “The dialog was very helpful hearing from people with boots on the ground,” added Sen. Sweeney. “This is the only way we can make good legislation is through conversations and questions. The openness of the administrators to visit their respective schools was greatly appreciated. Also, the board members that attended the meeting were very open to conversation even after the formal round table. My thanks goes out to everyone that attended.”
        Editor’s note: Montezuma Superintendent Rich Schulte assisted with this article.