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Fifty years ago, we put students before politics and the AEAs were created with the help of Senator Chuck Grassley, through bipartisanship, to create equal opportunities for all students, so that regardless of whether you lived in a rural area or an urban area, all children and educators had equal access and support to ensure Iowa students could achieve at the fullest.
As a special education teacher, I greatly benefitted from the help I received from the Area Education Agency, as the social worker and transition coordinator assisted my students with social skills and community activities and the speech and language pathologist helped my students acquire better ways to communicate. I was able to increasingly improve my teaching, as we all collaborated to see my students to their next steps beyond school and prepare them for independent living.
After teaching, I served as a curriculum director, principal and superintendent in several rural Iowa schools. In all of these capacities, I frequently reached out to AEA staff for professional learning supports; math, literacy and science materials; and professional learning opportunities for our teachers. Our schools incorporated both AEA special education and general education personnel as a part of our school improvement planning teams to study student data and determine ways to create increased positive outcomes for students. This frequently involved making modifications to our curriculum and instruction, which often meant more professional learning for us, as a staff — all with the help of content experts from our AEA.
In 2015, I moved from being a superintendent in rural Iowa to a superintendency in rural Connecticut. I shared seven school districts which served 1,600 students and encompassed 275 square miles. I quickly learned two things about the regional service centers in Connecticut: 1) they did not have special education staff to assist schools and 2) professional learning, curriculum materials, and other supports to schools were on a pay for use basis.
This required that we hire our own speech and language pathologists, school psychologists, contract out for occupational and physical therapists and vision and hearing specialists and pay for any specialized educational materials and equipment that some students required. To coordinate these professionals’ time and efforts with our seven rural schools necessitated that we have someone dedicated to oversee special education. For salary and benefits, travel among the seven schools, contracted services, and specialized curriculum materials and equipment for students, the annual cost was over $3.4 million from our districts’ budgets. In Iowa, these services would be provided by the district’s AEA. A school district in Iowa with 1,600 students would receive approximately $600,000 in special education flowthrough money that then gives the district these special education services. This should make us all take pause. Without the AEAs, not only would costs be greater for rural districts, but for every district. Our current system enables our state to provide major cost efficiencies to our schools and guarantees the high quality services by specially trained personnel.
In addition, since neither the Connecticut schools nor the regional service centers were accountable for children from birth to three, responsibility for the infants and toddlers fell to the state health and human services agencies, which meant there was not a seamless transition for infants to preschool, such as what exists with our Early Access program in Iowa.
It was extremely difficult to find quality staff for our rural part of the state for these positions, as a number of professionals often preferred to have less travel and work in urban areas. A job vacancy had few if any applicants. When an educator called to request professional materials from the educational service center, if the center even had the materials, it was the school’s responsibility to acquire them. Not like the AEAs in Iowa who locate and deliver materials to schools every week at no additional cost.
It is essential that we in Iowa understand what we have. We have a strong and connected system that works. The AEAs have worked to support all schools with staff, educational materials, and professional development. The AEAs and the schools in Iowa do not focus solely on students with special needs, but on all children. We consider that every child is a general education student first, helping to assist them with any learning needs that exist. If a student requires specialized services, this is provided with a group of professionals that work with the school and the family and follow that student throughout their school experience.
If Iowa loses this system, these strong supports that have been so carefully woven together will be gone. We will lose many of the current professionals employed by the AEAs. Schools that are already having difficulty with budgets will be forced to reallocate their purchasing power. We will have inconsistencies in services from one part of the state to another. This will result in some children who will be served and others who will not.
The Iowa Department of Education is supposed to be our schools’ first line of educational support and innovation. If the governor is questioning the quality of our state’s education, shouldn’t the department be her first area of attention? Since the Iowa Department of Education, the governor, and her last several appointed directors have not been able to meet past expectations, how can we be assured that this top down approach will meet increased future demands?
Administrators and teachers have much on their plates. We have a shortage of qualified special education professionals in our state. We cannot expect to pile on to each of their current responsibilities and yield better outcomes for our students. As a former special education teacher and administrator, I will say that not everyone in either of these professions has all of the knowledge they need to do what the staff at the AEAs do. And because of that, if this law goes through in any way shape or form, we will see huge disparities in how educators and students are served in this state. And when this happens, that is the greatest tragedy of all.
The AEA is a critical resource that our children desperately need today and will continue to require in the future. Let’s support our children’s education and give them the best chance to succeed by preserving the AEA.
Dr. Pam Vogel, Des Moines
Dear Representative Wills,
I always read your email updates, mostly because, unlike so many other email newsletters I get, from legislators on both sides of the aisle, I'm fairly certain that you write them yourself, rather than just copying and pasting the party line.
I feel the need to comment on your most recent post about supporting Iowa mothers. While I agree with many of your points, and suggestions for changes, I think there are some big picture issues that you're missing — and maybe even ignoring.
For Iowa mothers to get the prenatal, postpartum, and ongoing care they need, there has to be a strong healthcare system — one where competent OB-GYNs are available to every woman. We know that we don't have that now — especially in Iowa’s rural areas. Why? Well, there are many reasons, and I don't want to go into all of them.
Certainly the hospitals and salaries OB-GYNs face in most of Iowa are inadequate, but I don’t think that's the main hurdle to getting them to locate and practice here. Rather, I think it has to do with the actual quality of life here — in its totality. I’m guessing (but don’t really know) that you have an enjoyable life on the shores of Spirit Lake. For many Iowans, that's not the case. They’re confronted with polluted lakes, rivers and streams that they can no longer safely swim in or fish from. We have few state parks and preserves, and those we have are neglected.
I’m 77 years old. My parents were both teachers who transitioned into farming. I went to a one-room country school and then, luckily, to a great high school in Iowa City. I've been a reading volunteer in Iowa City elementary schools for over 25 years. So I have some first-hand experience with education. No one can claim that Iowa’s schools now have the first-in-the-nation status they once enjoyed.
What does all that have to do with OB-GYNs? Well, if you want to have them come here, live, and raise their families here, then you have to provide the kind of place these highly-trained professionals would want to live in and raise their children. Is that our current Iowa? No. And you know it’s not.
To top it off, you, and your colleagues in the Legislature, want to make it even more difficult to attract OB-GYNs here, by putting restrictions on the way they can practice their medical training.
I hope you've stayed with me. Right-to-life makes great sound bites, but it hasn’t, won’t, and never will stand in the way of women making their own decisions in the matter of abortion. Freedom? What is freedom if you can’t control your own body? I’m betting you've known women, whether acquaintances, classmates, friends or relatives who've had abortions. Would you look them in the eye and deny them that choice?
So yes, let’s stand together to support Iowa's mothers — whatever they choose to do.
Jim Walters, Iowa City
Looks like it will be the same two members of the over-the-hill gang running to be POTUS. The only thing these two bring to the White House is chaos. They are both unfit to serve. They are both corrupt, bold-faced liars. We deserve younger, principled leaders. I personally like RFK Jr. and Nikki Haley. Either one would unite our country and be class-acts while doing so.
Rich Andrews, Sun City, Ariz.
To demonstrate genuine commitment to the well-being of children and families, it is imperative that our governor and legislature take decisive action on the following proposals.
1. Support for AEAs: AEAs are vital to Iowa’s children and families, providing essential services that deserve expansion and praise. Instead of outsourcing to a Des Moines-based bureaucrat or private consultant, the governor’s proposal threatens to disrupt a well-functioning system. Families and school staff rely on AEA’s expertise, making the proposed increase in state control counterproductive and bureaucratic. Our governor is playing hide and seek with her proposals, a game better suited on a playground, not policy making.
2. Hungry children: Addressing the needs of as many as 69,000 hungry children in Iowa demands either greater allocation of resources to existing state programs or a change in the governor’s stance on federal dollars. Accepting federal funds to tackle this issue is crucial, and the legislature should enact a law requiring Iowa to accept funds to address the needs of hungry children in Iowa.
3. Pre and post-natal health care: Expand prenatal and postnatal care through Medicaid expansion, countering any reduction in prenatal care proposed by the governor. With Iowa’s alarming 30% increase in infant mortality as of 2022, urgent action is required to enhance state support for prenatal care. HF 2103 Iowa would make Iowa the first state to force men to support their child from the moment of conception if the bill becomes law. Greater Medicaid resources would be quicker and more efficient than trying to wait for legal enforcement of this proposed bill. Any Iowan involved with child support knows it is not a quick and easy process. Prenatal care can’t wait for months and months.
4. Mental health services: Increase state funding to attract credentialed mental health care providers, ensuring accessibility in both rural and urban areas.
5. Availability of quality child care: Enhance state support to expand childcare services, maintaining quality and accessibility, while avoiding any compromise on standards. Child care is essential for Iowa working families and plays a key role in Iowa’s economy. Child care requires government support to make it affordable and available.
6. Affordability of raising children: Invest more in refundable child care tax credits and earned income tax credits, directing these benefits towards working Iowans who need child care, rather than providing substantial income tax cuts to the affluent.
7. Nursing home support: Improve quality of Iowa’s nursing homes, focusing on recruitment and retention of staff by improving wages for direct care workers and increasing monitoring to ensure the safety of residents
8. Rural and urban public education. Fully fund any state-mandated pay raises with new money. Pay raises are a start, but should not be funded by local property tax increases. Modify the method of allocating funds for public schools to assure it works equally as well for rural districts in which enrollments may be declining as it does for growing suburban and urban districts.
In enacting these measures, we assert that prioritizing children and families would be recognized by our governor and legislature. By redirecting surplus funds or dollars currently designated for tax reductions benefiting the wealthy, Iowa has the opportunity to enhance the well-being of all its residents. Since there are dollars for certain tax reductions, there are funds for Iowa’s children and families. Iowa cannot lose by putting children and families first.
Ralph Rosenberg and Barbara Wheeloc, Ames, on behalf of PRO Iowa 24, a group of concerned rural Iowans with progressive values from Greene, Guthrie, Boone, Story and Dallas counties.
The SL Times Pilot front page headline on Friday, Jan. 26, 2024 certainly grabs your attention.
“SL TRUCK DRIVER KILLED IN CRASH”
The second headline took me by surprise, “Blown stop sign caused accident.”
I wonder if that wording is taken directly from any police accident report. One can only assume the deceased driver’s family, employer and any insurance companies involved with this tragic accident are pleased that the Storm Lake Times Pilot has fully investigated, confirmed fault and publicly pronounced guilt.
Mark Davis, Algona
Editor’s note: The information used in the story was taken directly from Iowa State Patrol crash reports.
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