T-R PHOTO BY LANA BRADSTREAM — Marshalltown Community School Board members Elizabeth Wise and Sara Faltys listen to Superintendent Theron Schutte discuss 2025-26 legislative priorities during the regular Monday meeting. Schutte provides the board with updated priorities every year.

Superintendent Theron Schutte shared the legislative priorities for the 2025-26 school year with the Marshalltown Community School District Board of Education during the Monday meeting.

A document presented during the meeting listed the five priorities and briefly described their importance:

• Supplemental state aid. This is the biggest means for providing resources for students and supports the teacher workforce. The Marshalltown Community School District (MCSD) supports state aid policies which allow districts to provide a high-quality education for students, provide resources to ensure recruitment and retention of employees and will incorporate inflation and cost-of-living increases to minimize general fund impact;

• Local control. The document stated school boards should have the authority to use funding in ways that best meet the needs of students. If the state interferes and makes changes, the state should provide the funding without taking resources away from other education areas. Property taxes are critical and tax overhaul should not endanger Iowa’s ability to fund public schools;

• Mental health. Student mental health needs are increasing. The MCSD supports policies which would create ways to provide an increase of in-school and telehealth services, improve awareness of mental health needs through training, integrate suicide prevention and coping skills into the curriculum, support mental health needs of school district employees, designate funding for mental health professionals serving students and district staff and support development of a mental health workforce to provide services to students.

Preschool. MCSD supports policies which ensure school districts have the financial and capacity means to serve 4 and 5-year-old children and provide resources to support the behavioral needs for those children. Schutte said at some point they would like to see funding for full-day preschool, particularly for low-income families;

Teacher recruitment and licensure. A skilled teacher workforce can be achieved through state policies which ensure necessary trainings, encourage intiatives which encourage diversity to match the student population, expand programs such as Teach Iowa Scholar, create programs for student teaching grants and expand teacher apprenticeship programs, use the management fund to offer recruitment incentives and create reciprocity agreements with other states.

According to Schutte, he sent out a survey to get people’s opinions on the district’s legislative priorities. The order of the priority list is based on answers received from the survey. Schutte added that the local control priority, which was added following the survey, relates to the board having control and discretion over property taxes.

“There was a lot of legislation this past year that wanted to further restrict what school districts could do as far as property taxes, bond referendums and things like that,” he said.

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Contact Lana Bradstream at 641-753-6611 ext. 210

or lbradstream@timesrepublican.com.