Charter school, higher education bills advance ahead of funnel deadline

(Iowa Capital Dispatch) – The Iowa Senate Education Committee moved ahead legislation Wednesday as the first funnel of the legislative session draws closer. The bills covered secondary and higher education in reporting requirements, course numbering, data reports and more.

Each of the bills passed out of the committee and will head to the Iowa Senate floor for debate. Most bills not passed through one chamber’s committee by the end of this week are declared dead for the session, with several exceptions.

Higher education 

Vaccinations: Senate File 2095 would require private colleges and universities offering degree programs with clinical rotations to, if requested by a student, find a rotation placement where that student would be exempt from any vaccination requirements put in place by that placement during their time in the rotation.

As defined in the bill, a clinical rotation is “a period of training completed for academic credit by a student in a medical, nursing, or other health care-related degree that is supervised by a health care professional in a facility.”

If an institution violates this rule, the legislation states they would no longer be eligible to participate in the Iowa Tuition Grant program, in which eligible students attending an Iowa private college or university receive state financial aid.

Sen. Sandy Salmon, R-Janesville, introduced an amendment approved by the committee that lays out a process for colleges and universities to come into compliance with the law, if passed, before it is enacted.

Sen. Cindy Winckler, D-Davenport, urged the committee to vote no on the amendment and bill, saying the legislation is “misplaced” due to its connection with communicable diseases code and disagreeing with the punishment laid out in the bill.

While Sen. Jeff Taylor, R-Sioux Center, said he’s heard about this problem in the past and supports the legislation, his two concerns were that universities could be caught between following state or federal policies and that the penalty of ineligibility to the Iowa Tuition Grant program would be punishing students, not noncompliant institutions. He suggested imposing a fine instead.

“It is an issue that needs to be addressed and I would be happy to take into account the suggestions you’ve made, and we’ll keep working on this,” Salmon said.

Course framework: Senate Study Bill 3163 would have the Iowa Department of Education work with Iowa’s community colleges and the Iowa Board of Regents to develop and enact “statewide lower division general education framework and common course numbering systems” for all community college coursework.

Courses would be numbered to reflect their subject area and level, the bill stated, and the system must connect them to equivalent courses at other colleges and universities and ensure each related course has similar descriptions and common course outcomes to be used in course catalogs, registration systems and transcripts.

Faculty would lead efforts to determine course equivalency across institutions and the education department would maintain the course numbering directory, as well as submit a study to the General Assembly on implementation. Starting in July 2027, the general education framework would apply to all community college general education courses “and be built upon the existing statewide transfer pathways,” the bill explanation stated.

The Department of Education must also, as stated in the bill, “establish a statewide framework for corequisite developmental education,” which all community colleges must substitute for their “traditional, prerequisite remedial coursework” in math and English by the 2028-2029 academic year.

Career and technical education service areas would be renamed as career and technical education content areas under the bill. The Department of Education would be required to align the content’s six areas with a “national framework representative of all career pathways,” which would be changed in the legislation to include agriculture, information systems, applied sciences, health sciences, human services and business.

Regional career and technical education partnerships would also have to show that all expenditures align with high-skill, high-wage and high-demand occupations, all of which are defined in the bill.

Committee chair Sen. Lynn Evans, R-Aurelia, said the legislation should help four-year colleges and universities in determining whether credits coming in meet program requirements.

“I think we’re well past time to clean up some of these numbering systems and try to make it more uniform. It’s going to alleviate some of the questions, when a student goes to a two-year school and then transfers for a four-year school, on how those credits transfer and how they can be applied,” Evans said. “I think it’s a good change.”

Education reporting: Senate Study Bill 3164 would change education reporting requirements in different state agencies, including Iowa Workforce Development and the Iowa College Student Aid Commission.

Iowa Workforce Development would be required to provide “unit-level wage data” to the Iowa Department of Education for evaluating secondary and postsecondary program outcomes, the bill stated, and the student aid commission would incorporate the Future Ready Iowa Last-Dollar Scholarship report into its own annual reporting.

The student aid commission would also become responsible for a reporting system on return on investment data by community colleges and public universities if the bill passes, including costs of attendance, retention and completion rates, time to completion, and post-completion outcomes. Data would need to be published annually in a “consumer-facing format,” the bill stated, and institutions who don’t report data would become ineligible for state student financial aid until compliance is reached.

Multiple reports currently required by state law, on topics like online learning, achievement gaps, and kindergarten literary assessments, would be compiled into an “annual condition of education report” under the bill,  to be submitted to the governor and General Assembly by April 1 each year.

Evans said the bill came to the committee from the Department of Education, and the language cleaned up in the legislation would make Iowa eligible for “a sizable amount” of federal funding. However, he is still waiting on data to answer the question of how much implementing the legislation would cost.

Sen. Herman Quirmbach, D-Ames, said he’s heard that consolidating reports results in details being omitted where they had previously been available.

“I hear from a lot of people that there have been problems and frustrations getting relevant information,” Quirmbach said. “We’re just talking about basic factual information from the Department of Education, and the general reaction was that this bill will not help (with) access to that information.”

Closing U.S. Department of Education: Quirmbach and other Democrats on the education committee also spoke out against a joint resolution passed by the committee Wednesday, supporting federal efforts to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education and encouraging cooperation from Congress. He pushed back against Evans’s statement that education is the assumed right of the states due to it not being in the 10th Amendment, saying the federal government’s role in education policy predates the Constitution and has only expanded its roles since that time.

He and Winckler also pointed out that if the U.S. Department of Education is shuttered, there are no guarantees of federal education money continuing to flow to states. Sen. Mike Zimmer, D-DeWitt, added that the federal government has also stepped in to provide equity between states.

“I think that it is certainly in your purview to do this, but I personally feel it’s short sighted,” Winckler said.

Secondary education 

School reorganization incentives: Senate Study Bill 3146 would extend incentives for school districts that reorganize from July 1, 2024 to the same date in 2031, including a reduced uniform levy.

School districts that implement whole-grade sharing and commit to studying reorganization or dissolution, with enactment by July 2031, would be able to “receive a weighting of one-tenth of  the percentage of a student’s school day during which the student” attends classes at another school district or is taught by a jointly employed teacher or a teacher from another district.

Sen. Jesse Green, R-Harcourt, said this bill “didn’t get across the finish line” in the previous legislative session, and there is a “handful” of schools across Iowa the bill would help as they figure out potential reorganization.

Sen. Sarah Trone Garriott, D-West Des Moines, said there will be many school districts that need this bill, as a decade of inadequate funding has led to the point where they have to consider consolidation or closure.

“This year’s funding is so inadequate, many will not be able to meet the minimum teacher salary guidelines, and so it is very necessary, and it’s very sad that we have the resources to help schools consolidate and close, but not to keep them open,” Trone Garriott said. “And so I’m supportive of the measure, and disappointed that this is what we need at this time.”

Sen. Tom Shipley, R-Nodaway, said money can be thrown at these school districts but the fact remains that there aren’t as many people in these areas as there used to be, making money secondary to population in these issues.

Social studies: Senate File 2121 would expand rules for social studies education, requiring seventh and eighth graders to receive instruction related to U.S. government that takes up at least half of one semester. Green introduced an amendment that was approved by the committee which struck rules relating to ninth through 12th grade.

Zimmer said everyone wants Iowa students to understand civics, but there is limited time in high school and other aspects to civics education that must be considered. He supported both the amendment and the legislation.

“We’ve made some massive changes in the last couple years with civics, and so I think there’s more work that needs to be done but this is a step in the right direction,” Green said.

Cardiac emergency response: Senate File 2092 would establish a competitive grant program within the Department of Education for schools to use in developing a cardiac emergency response plan. Evans said these plans would focus on athletic events and physical education and training with an automated external defibrillator.

The committee is still waiting for data on how many schools have these defibrillators and have done training, Evans said, and he hopes to receive it before the bill comes up on the Senate floor.

Behavioral issues: Sen. Kerry Gruenhagen, R-Walcott, introduced Senate File 2181 and said it would have the Department of Education create a pilot program in which a rural school district and urban school district would establish attendance centers “used to provide educational services to eligible students requiring special education and students with behavioral issues.” He added an amendment will likely be introduced in the future to address how the pilot program would be funded.

Sen. Molly Donahue, D-Cedar Rapids, said she was glad to hear that an amendment was coming, as one of her biggest concerns is that the money could be coming from area education agencies to fund this program. Evans said he believes there is alternative funding available.

Zimmer said he applauded Gruenhagen for moving this bill along, but it’s a challenge to get the space, people and curriculum to all work together in the best way for students.

Senate File 2044 also deals with student removals from the classroom, Gruenhagen said. The legislation would require attendance centers to create review committees with two teachers and one administrator, which would oversee instances where a teacher removes a student for nonviolent or violent behavior.

In both situations the removed student would be placed with the principal or designated person, and in violent incidents, the student would not be allowed to return to class without the teacher’s consent. The review committee would be able to override the teacher and place a student back in the classroom if the incident was nonviolent. An amendment approved by the committee made language changes and specified that removed students on an Individual Education Plan must have a review meeting on that plan within 10 days of removal.

Donahue and Zimmer suggested to Gruenhagen that the legislation should reference federal language when it comes to Individual Education Plans to ensure compliance and reinforce the goal of the bill.

Banned concepts: Senate File 2174 would expand restrictions on defined concepts in Iowa code such as critical race theory in schools and allow school district residents to bring a civil suit against the district for violating code without having to demonstrate harm done to them. Salmon told the committee the proposal came from Ames parents who saw their complaints to the Board of Educational Examiners not validated “due to loopholes in the law.”

Quirmbach said the legislation would open the door to “any Tom, Dick and Harry who wants to come along and make trouble by claiming a violation.”

In situations where a parent of a student in a school district sees noncompliant behavior, Salmon said it could be difficult to demonstrate harm in order to show a violation of the law.

“Law enforcement by the Board of Educational Examiners has been weak or nonexistent regarding violations of this law,” Salmon said. “These reforms are designed to bring more accountability.”

Charter schools: Senate File 2175, as amended in committee, would add the teacher salary supplement state cost per pupil to payments to charter schools by the Department of Education and include charter school teachers in the state’s public employee retirement system.

The legislation also expands athletic and extracurricular opportunities for charter school students, establishes charter school governing boards as local education agencies in order to receive federal funding, expands preschool partnerships and sets rules relating to charter school facilities and the Iowa Finance Authority.

Quirmbach said there may be attractive sections of the bill but it would take more money from school districts while placing additional burdens on them.

“For those who happen to be listening to the school funding debate last week, you heard multiple examples of school districts that were so short of funds that they were unable to meet the state mandated minimum salaries,” Quirmbach said. “So scooping further teacher salary supplements from those districts, to me, is not acceptable.”

Senate Study Bill 3170, described by Evans as the governor’s charter school bill, would direct full per-pupil funding of state aid to follow any student who transfers to a charter school, remove references to innovation zone schools, extend charter school contracts with the state board of education and require area education agencies to provide educational and media services to charter school students.

Parts of the bill overlap with Senate File 2175, including the changes to teacher supplement funding and extracurricular activities, and Quirmbach said his concerns with Senate Study Bill 3170 similarly overlap.

Evans said he’s done a side-by-side comparison of the two bills and he anticipates an amendment to come to the Iowa Senate floor alongside the bill if it is taken up for debate.

Athletic scrimmages: Senate File 2212 would allow public and accredited nonpublic schools to hold athletic scrimmages with home school sports organizations, requiring a written agreement before the scrimmage and stating that the event would not count toward regular season athletic statistics.

The scrimmage must be “voluntary, limited in duration and intensity, occur at certain facilities, and may not involve official scorekeeping, charging admission, play-by-play announcements or pay for officials,” the bill explanation stated.

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