A Warren County legislator says he’ll try again next year to give students new privileges who switch schools in order to get away from a bully.
Representative Scott Ourth started championing the idea after hearing about a 15-year-old wrestler whose older teammates verbally and physically abused him. Under Iowa’s open enrollment law, students can transfer to a neighboring school district, but they can’t play sports right away.
“He either has to quit the sport he likes to avoid being bullied in the wrestling room or he has to change school districts and be punished once again by not being able to pursue this sport,” Ourth says.
Ourth, who is a Democrat from Ackworth, is not identifying the school district or the name of the student.
“All he’s trying to do is protect himself from this egregious behavior and every single time we say no to a person like that, we’re handing a victory to the bullies,” Ourth says.
Ourth spoke about the issue this week before the legislature’s Administrative Rules Review Committee. Some members of the committee said they support the open enrollment law as written, to prevent kids from cherry-picking schools just to play sports.