As in past years, Rep. Sue Cahill (D-Marshalltown), Rep. Dean Fisher (R-Montour) and Sen. Jeff Edler (R-State Center) were all in attendance, and they were joined by a newcomer to the event in Sen. Ken Rozenboom (R-Oskaloosa), who now represents a portion of Jasper County as a result of redistricting. The East Marshall, Marshalltown, GMG, South Tama and Grinnell-Newburg school districts were all represented in the crowd, along with three representatives from the AEA.

After each legislator had a chance to offer an introduction, East Marshall Superintendent Tony Ryan, who served as the moderator for the night, asked if there were any key educational issues they would like to see addressed during the upcoming session beginning in January. Rozenboom identified four: the budget, expanding preschool, raising teacher pay and potential AEA reforms.

Rozenboom described the current AEA system, which is over 50 years old and is broken into nine separate regions, as “administratively top heavy” with an annual budget of around $530 million and only about 63 percent of that spent on special education. He said the agencies had been guilty of “mission creep” and felt it was a conflict of interest for the AEAs to provide special education services while also serving as the monitoring watchdog of those same services.

“We think it’s expensive. We also think the performance is not what it should be. That’s a bad combination,” he said.

T-R PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY East Marshall Superintendent Tony Ryan, right, interacts with Sen. Jeff Edler and Rep. Sue Cahill at the conclusion of Wednesday night’s event.

Cahill, the lone Democratic legislator at the table and a former educator in Marshalltown, was happy to see teacher pay and preschool expansion being addressed and hoped some of the money in the state’s current budget surplus would be spent on public education.

“Instead of using that money to build up our infrastructure and our systems such as our education system, yes, we can give it back to the citizens, but then I worry that maybe you guys are gonna have to raise your levy because you’re not getting a number that allows you to provide the services you need to for your families,” she said. “So I get concerned that some of our tax system is a little bit of a shell game.”

Another idea Edler raised was making it easier to become a teacher and exploring alternative licensing processes, especially for those who wish to instruct in Career and Technical Education (CTE) fields, and Fisher agreed that attracting more teachers is a key part of a larger strategy aimed at keeping more young people who grew up in Iowa to stay here.

Ryan, MCSD Superintendent Theron Schutte and South Tama Superintendent John Cain all offered their wholehearted support for the local AEA and the services it provides, with Schutte concerned about any effort to disband or dismantle the current system and Ryan and Cain noting ways that AEAs help smaller district fill positions they otherwise might not be able to find the right candidate for or afford to pay.

“If you disbanded the AEA and equitably disbursed the money, the only district in the state that could afford all the services with that money is one that hasn’t been a part of the AEA, Des Moines,” Schutte said. “So, to Tony’s point, it would cripple a lot of districts to do that, and the millions of dollars that have already been cut from the AEA, in my opinion, has contributed to the lack of success in kids’ special ed… I think a little bit more research needs to happen in order to intelligently speak to the ramifications of doing something drastic to the AEAs.”

Conversely, however, Schutte called last year’s three percent increase in Supplemental State Aid (SSA) “a breath of fresh air” after districts received lower percentages in previous years.

Rozenboom pushed back against the idea that the AEA system would be disbanded or blown up and instead said Gov. Reynolds is focused on finding solutions and reforms that would garner widespread support.

“Disbanding the AEAs is not on the table. I just don’t want that narrative to go any further because it isn’t gonna happen,” he said.

The senator also wished to stress the message that legislators “have teachers’ backs” when it comes to dealing with student behavioral issues, and Ryan said it was a gradual process to drive it home.

Citing her day job at Des Moines Area Community College (DMACC), East Marshall school board member Elizabeth Crandon advocated for more vocational training instructors as part of a “grow your own” effort, and East Marshall High School Principal Matt Rasmussen criticized the current Iowa Workforce Development website for teaching jobs as cumbersome and confusing.

MCSD Director of Instruction Shauna Smith asked the legislators to consider finding a permanent funding source for the Teacher Para Registered Apprenticeship (TPRA) program, which is currently paid for with Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) dollars, to make it easier for those who grow up in places like Marshalltown to stay there as adults and become education professionals.

Crandon addressed the perception that districts like hers were now considered the “have-nots” when compared to suburban districts in the Des Moines area experiencing consistent growth and, as a result, having more money to spend.

“We do have to focus, in our rural areas, about growing our own, and that’s why, when it comes to resources, honestly, a lot of rural districts feel this feeling of ‘We are the have-nots,'” she said. “You look at all the metropolitan schools, they are the haves. They are spending $13, $15 million on football stadiums when we just want a lunch room where our students can actually have a separate lunch room and a separate gym so they can actually have an inside recess and have PE more than twice a week.”

And although it hadn’t yet been addressed, Cahill, who sits on the House education committee, brought up some of the more controversial changes in education policy near the end of the night, pointing to some of the larger philosophical differences between herself and her GOP colleagues.

“Last year, we spent an inordinate amount of time dealing with issues that affect a very small number of students across our state — what bathroom someone uses, what nickname someone was called, teaching about gender identity and the broader sense of our world, looking at books that are classics in our world and taking them off the shelves (and) looking at the voucher system,” she said. “More than 91 percent of the people who contacted me, and I had well over 1,000 people contact me about vouchers, were against it, and yet we spent an inordinate amount of time on those areas and not necessarily on teacher retention, retainment and equity.”

The topics discussed on Wednesday night, in Cahill’s view, were the things the legislature should be focused on going forward, and her statement drew a round of applause. Before adjourning the gathering, Ryan thanked each legislator for being responsive and willing to engage in discussion with him even if they aren’t always in consensus on every issue.

“Debates are debates, and at the end of the day, there have been times with each of you that I haven’t always agreed. You haven’t always agreed with me, but it’s always been very cordial and we always lean on each other because of the Iowa Nice thing,” Ryan said. “I’d like to thank each one of you for what you do and for finding time this evening.”

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Contact Robert Maharry at 641-753-6611 ext. 255 or

rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.