The Iowa Senate has voted to give school officials the option of bypassing Area Education Agencies and providing services to students with disabilities by hiring private contractors or district staff.
Senator Lynn Evans of Aurelia, a retired superintendent, is among the 28 Republicans in the senate who voted for the bill. “The AEAs need to earn the business of school districts through increased transparency, accountability and quality of services…That’s local control,” said Evans, the bill’s floor manager and one of just two Republicans who spoke in favor of the bill during Senate debate. “Who knows your children better than the people sitting at your local school board’s table?”
Iowa is the only state where state and federal funds for special education services, like speech therapy, are sent directly to Area Education Agencies. Evans said schools have never seen “a bill of sale” for what they’re getting from the AEAs.
“The goal is to get the best return on investment for the most efficient delivery of special ed service for kids who need them,” Evans said.
Governor Reynolds has called for similar changes. Evans said putting the Iowa Department of Education in charge and giving schools control over 90% of the state and federal funds set aside for special education will force AEAs to show how much each service costs.
“The people who are on the ground, working for the AEAs, they do God’s work and they’re great people. Their hearts are in the right places,” Evans said. “but they’re hampered and their handcuffed by a system that has been in need of reform for many years.”
Six Republicans joined all the Democrats in the Senate in opposing the bill. Senator Janet Petersen, a Democrat from Des Moines, saod Republicans who back the bill are “following the governor over a cliff…Iowans have seen this drill before and we know it will hurt our kids. This is another attempt to privatize our prized public education system.”
Senator Molly Donahue, a Democrat from Cedar Rapids, has been a special education teacher for 33 years. She said the bill will destabilize the AEA system. “Teachers, parents and children, particularly in our rural areas, who are on edge because of the services they may no longer have available to them,” Donahue said.
Senate Democratic Leader Pam Jochum of Dubuque spoke emotionally of her late daughter, Sarah, who had an intellectual disability and received AEA services. “Rural Iowa, they’re the ones that are going to pay the biggest price for this,” Jochum said. “The AEAs economy or scale and safety net is going to be gone.”
House Republicans passed their own plan at the end of February that calls for a study of the AEA system and maintains AEA services for students with disabilities for at least a couple of years.
Governor Reynolds issued a written statement thanking the Senate “for acknowleging the AEA system needs reform.” She pledged to work with GOP leaders in the House and Senate to find a compromise plan.