Iowa AEAs see 429 fewer staff as school year begins, Democratic lawmakers say

Jamie Orozco-Nagel and her family attended the House public hearing on a bill making changes to Iowa's Area Education Agencies on Feb. 21, 2024. (Photo by Robin Opsahl/Iowa Capital Dispatch)

Iowa Democratic lawmakers released a report Thursday showing there has been a reduction of more than 400 staff at Iowa’s Area Education Agencies for this school year in the wake of a new law making changes to the system of agencies.

AEAs are the entities that provide special education support and other services to Iowa’s K-12 schools. According to information submitted to Democratic lawmakers by the AEAs on Aug. 15, there has been a total reduction of 429 staff at Iowa’s nine AEAs compared to the previous school year.

Prairie Lakes AEA saw the largest proportion of staff leaving, with 44 departures and roughly a 18% total reduction in staff, while Keystone AEA saw the smallest at 9.3% with 22 fewer staff members. Grant Wood AEA had the highest total staff reduction at 84 staff members — a nearly 16% drop in staffing.

Rep. Lindsay James, D-Dubuque, said at a news conference Thursday that this reduction means that there will be fewer professionals at Iowa’s public K-12 schools providing “vital services” for students through special education, crisis intervention and mental health provisions, in addition to education support and professional development services.

While Gov. Kim Reynolds named the law as her top priority during the 2024 legislative session, it encountered significant pushback from the public and some lawmakers during the session. After months of negotiations, the governor and GOP legislative leaders reached an agreement on the measure. It was scaled back from Reynolds’ original proposal to allow all state and federal special education funding that previously went directly to AEA to go public school districts instead.

In its final form, the law has 90% of school districts’ special education funding going to AEAs after first being allocated to school districts, beginning in the 2025-2026 school year, and allows districts discretionary control over the remaining 10% of special education funds.

This school year, the law will split the funding for general education and media services previously going to AEAs, with 40% going to AEAs and 60% to school districts. Beginning in the second year of implementation, schools districts will also have full control over funding for general education and media services.

Critics have said the 2024 law will mean that school districts — especially those in rural areas — will have less access to services currently provided by AEAs, as the previous funding model provided smaller school districts access to services that would come at a higher cost through an outside provider or individual contract.

Senate Minority Leader Pam Jochum, D-Dubuque, said the previous AEA funding model was created so funding would be distributed equitably to better help students with special education needs, regardless of where they lived. She said the changes to the AEAs supported by Statehouse Republicans and Reynolds were not made with “with the best interest of our students and our educators in mind.”

“What the governor and the Republicans have done is created a system that is now very unstable, uncertain,” Jochum said. “It has created winners and losers, and we are now headed for a real urban-rural divide in educating our children.”

Reynolds said at a news conference earlier in August that the law has not changed school districts’ ability to work with AEAs as they have in previous years. She said Iowa Department of Education Director McKenzie Snow has been in contact with numerous school districts about implementation of the law in the lead-up to the beginning of the school year.

“If they want to continue to use the AEAs in the same manner that they did before, then they can continue to do that,” Reynolds said at a news conference last week. “Nothing has changed.”

James said the staff reductions reported by AEAs show that Reynolds saying “nothing has changed” is not true.

“The governor is being disingenuous, she is being dishonest,” James said. “The governor is misleading the public, because the data shows us otherwise — 429 fewer staff as a result of this legislation.”

Many of the staff reductions are from people leaving the AEA system, seeking other employment. While Reynolds and Republican supporters of the measure said these staff members can be hired by school districts or the Iowa Department of Education — which now oversees the AEA system through the Division of Special Education — Democrats argued that many of the professionals previously at AEAs would leave the Iowa education workforce.

Roughly 20 people left Grant Wood voluntarily after the 2023-2024 school year, Jochum said, and 56 total special education service providers left, Jochum said. So far, she said Grant Wood has only been able to hire for 15 of the 56 special education positions.

“Most of them are not leaving voluntarily,” Jochum said. “… There’s maybe 20 that retired early, but most are just moving. They’re leaving. And so, it’s really is having an impact on the education of our children.”