Radio Iowa
You are here: Home
Senators ponder new route to remove school board members
After students in Des Moines Public School spent much of the fall semester in online classes, a bill in the Iowa Senate is designed to make it easier to eject members from a school board.
Emily Piper, a lobbyist for the Iowa Association of School Boards, is raising concerns about giving just five registered voters the power to petition a judge to remove school board members.
“Let’s say the court did determine that the entire board or half the board had violated the law and agreed with their removal, without the ability to hold an immediate special election, school boards would be unable to function,” Piper said this morning. “They would not have a quorum, they could not do their business.”
Parents of elementary school students would have to be notified and provide written permission if instruction related to gender identity were included in a curriculum offered in accordance with the
The Iowa House and Senate came to a compromise on increasing state aid to K-12 schools last week, though it comes as a concern to districts that have seen decreased enrollment in the last year.
The Iowa House passed an amended Senate bill last Thursday that would increase state aid by 2.4 percent. That’s about the same as last year’s 2.3 percent increase, but because of an enrollment drop of about 6,000 students across the state, the dollar increase would be about $50 million smaller. Washington Community Schools Superintendent Willie Stone voiced his concern at this proposal during a visit from Governor Kim Reynolds Thursday, stating that he can’t make any staff changes that would accommodate a couple hundred thousand dollar decrease, and that the district would have to increase property taxes to make up for it. District 42 State Senator Jeff Reichman comments on the legislation, “Raising property taxes is always a concern, I own property down here in Lee County and the tax
Schools that teach lessons based on the New York Times’ 1619 Project, which details the legacy of slavery in the U.S., would lose some state funding under a bill advanced Tuesday by Republicans in the Iowa House of Representatives.
DES MOINES - Legislative Republicans on Monday advanced separate funding bills they say will meet the needs of K-12 schools next fiscal year. But critics slammed the proposals as inadequate, cruel and vengeful in trying to punish the Des Moines public schools in particular for failing to immediately comply with Gov. Kim Reynolds push for in-person classroom instruction against the backdrop of a pandemic.