Newton school board members are moving forward with their initiative to create a new legislative priority that would instruct the lobbying arm of the district — Iowa Association of School Boards (IASB) — to hold lawmakers responsible for providing guidance and timelines when passing laws that affect public education.
During the July 8 school board meeting, a proposed resolution expressing this priority was presented and approved by elected officials. The resolution states that when a law is passed which applies to school policies and practices, there are many areas in which the impact is felt, be it policies or the budget itself.
However, the resolution goes on to say guidance is not routinely provided to districts by the start of the school year. Sometimes this means changes to handbook come at the cost of the district spending money on legal counsel. Lack of guidance on law implementation also affects board policies from IASB.
Implementation of laws impacting schools should be planned out, the resolution states, and should include a timeline and guidances for consistency purposes; the date for the start of legislation should be set once input is provided by school officials, IASB and the Iowa Department of Education.
Newton Superintendent Tom Messinger drafted the resolution for school board members, who responded positively to the proposal. Messinger said the way in which laws are implemented for school systems is in need of significant reform. He mentioned the passing of the AEA restructure bill as an example.
“The law went into effect on July 1, 2024, and schools still do not know the exact amount of charges for the services from the AEA, the specific details about what services schools will be charged for and the details of the process of adding or dropping services once the list is finalized with the AEA,” Messenger said.
Systems that are mandated by law with no established details communicated by lawmakers or the Department of Education “do not treat schools with respect,” he added. Districts are not able to plan accordingly both with the budget and the implementation of certain policies and practices.
Other examples of problematic implementations of laws relating to education include Senate File 496. Messinger said parts of the law address aggressive behaviors and student gender identity. To him, the law was put into place without details being ironed out, especially when it came to violations of the law.
Violators of the law could lose their licenses, and with such a steep penalty Messinger suggested schools needed instruction from the state.
“The guidance did not come prior to the implementation and prior to the date that penalties were supposed to be enacted,” he said.
Messinger asked board members to approve this new priority that was not included among the many others drafted by IASB. The superintendent also noted Newton schools received a survey from Rural School Advocates of Iowa asking for priorities as well. He could fill it out as an individual or as an organization.
“At the bare minimum, I’m going to write this as an individual for input on there,” Messinger said. “But if the board were to choose to approve this tonight as a legislative priority I would include it as one of our organizational ones.”
When it comes to the new rules following the AEA bill, Messinger said Newton administrators are not committing more than 70 percent of the money the school earns for services, due in large part because districts have not been told what fees are going to be.
“We’re not told exactly how it’s going to work,” Messinger said. “We’re not told exactly which services we’ll be charged for and which ones we won’t. And we’ve also been told that potentially you have to pay for a minimum of a full day increment because of travel time and things that go along with that.”
School board member Travis Padget suggested that although the AEA bill was used as an example, the resolution of the new legislative priority applies generally to any education bill passed by lawmakers. But the laws that have been passed this past year — and perhaps two years — have caused many issues.
To Padget, it’s unacceptable for one government to tell another government how to do things without giving them any direction, procedures or communications.
“It’s a significant issue,” Padget said, noting that these laws can have major impacts to the budget and possible loss of teacher or administrator licenses upon violation. “And if the threat is there of losing your license without the procedure to how to follow it, it’s inappropriate, it’s ineffective and it needs to change.”
Padget went on to volunteer himself to serve as a delegate for IASB and present the resolution as a new priority to be considered by other districts.
“I think it’s significant for all of the districts in this state, and it’s for administrators and teachers as well,” Padget said. “…I think it’s really important, and clearly we’re really fired up by it.”
Here is Messinger’s resolution in full: “When a law is passed which applies to school policies and practices, there are many areas the impact is felt including board policies, handbook policies, the school budget (including categoricals and general fund). A school provides handbooks by the beginning of the school year. Guidance is not routinely provided to school districts by the start of the school year which means changes to the handbook based on school legal counsel which is a cost to the district. The school districts also receive their school board policies from IASB which are not able to be done until guidance is provided for the implementation of the law. The implementation of laws impacting schools should be planned out including the following: timeline for implementation and guidance for implementation for consistency. The date for the start of legislation should be set once input is provided by school officials, IASB, and the Department of Education. A law should not be enacted impacting schools until the timeline is developed based on input and guidance is provided to schools on the law.”
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