An image widely circulated on social media this month highlights in yellow proposed cuts to Iowa’s Area Education Agencies (AEAs). Since Gov. Kim Reynolds delivered her 2024 Condition of the State Address on Jan. 9 in which she laid out possible changes to the AEA, both Reynolds and the Republican-controlled legislature have walked back some of the cuts. IMAGE COURTESY OF FACEBOOK

MARSHALLTOWN – State Rep. Sue Cahill heard concerns from constituents on a piece of recently-proposed education legislation at a community conversation at the Marshalltown Public Library last Saturday afternoon.

The hour-long session with Cahill, a Marshalltown Democrat, was dominated by discussion of the early-drafted legislation. The original proposal restricted Iowa’s nine Area Education Agencies (AEA) across the state to only providing special education services and would stop them from providing media services, professional training and other help to Iowa schools as has been the standard.

Governor Kim Reynolds announced Thursday that the bill would be amended to allow for AEAs to continue providing all of their services by individual school request and after approval from the state Department of Education.

Cahill noted the overwhelming amount of feedback regarding this bill in the short time since it’s been introduced.

“We’re talking hundreds of thousands of emails, not just from one group, but widespread,” Cahill said. “I take some consolation in the fact that this past week, [Reynolds] has stepped back a little bit to say, ‘OK, well we are going to have to look at it, we’ve listened to the people.'”

That has not quelled the unease from those in attendance on Saturday, including Marshalltown Community School District Superintendent Theron Schutte.

The bill would allow for school districts to enter contracts with private companies or hire their own employees to handle the work of the AEA; Schutte shared past experiences of hearing from other districts that have called into question the value of AEA’s work.

“There’s been one, maybe two studies on this in my tenure as an educator,” Schutte said. “And those studies indicated the only district in the state that has the capacity to do it on their own is Des Moines. … So for any district, even the larger districts, even if the superintendent checks it out, they usually find it’ll cost significantly more money and probably be less available or capable to do it.”

The bill also included verbiage to increase the state’s minimum teacher salary to $50,000, or $62,000 for teachers with 12 or more years of experience.

“I have trouble with that – we’re pushing two entities against each other,” Cahill said. “If I vote no, I’m telling teachers I don’t want them to have better pay. … But if that was presented to us to vote on as originally intended, I’d have to vote no. Our first focus has to be, what are we doing for our kids? … When I look at it, I look at having equitable services throughout the state for kids.”

Cahill agreed with the premise of looking at reorganization for the state’s AEAs, just not as presented in this bill.

“Our hope is that we can slow this down and say, ‘Wait a minute, let’s look at this,'” Cahill added. “Any large organization can tweak things to make things better. Let’s take a year-long study and involve the people who do the work — the superintendents, the personnel, the families who receive services, and look and prioritize the system to see if there are areas that need improvement.”

She also agreed with concerns expressed from the group on Saturday about the speed of which the Republican-controlled legislature and Republican governor can move bills like this through both houses and onto Gov. Reynolds’ desk.

“It could have happened very quickly,” Cahill said. “But I think there have been enough folks saying that you’ve got to slow down. But then again I thought that too about vouchers where it showed the majority of people were against it, but yet it passes through very quickly. … What it comes down to is that we’ve got to look at elections come November.”

In that vein, Cahill introduced Mike Wolfe to the group on Saturday. Wolfe, a resident of rural Maxwell, declared last month his campaign for the District 26 State Senate seat that will now be vacated by Sen. Jeff Edler (R-State Center), who recently announced he will not seek re-election in 2024.

“I feel like we are moving backwards in our plan to invest in our state and our children,” Wolfe said. “The more we chip away at education, the more we chip away at the ways we can support kids who need extra help, the more we make laws that demonize particular groups of Iowans, the less likely our kids are going to want to stay here. … We have to change direction.”

Cahill also discussed some of her current legislation proposals and ideas for this year’s legislative session, including a bill to fund the Marshalltown Police and Community Team (MPACT) and YSS services in the region, a bill increasing stipends for veterans at the Iowa Veterans Home, and wanting to look at legislation to extend the tax-free holiday in August to allow families more time to plan their purchases for school clothing and supplies for students.

Cahill also expressed concern over an increase in fatal ATV and UTV-related accidents since legislation was passed to allow UTVs on nearly all roads in the state.

“Our main focuses this year as a Democratic caucus are people over politics,” Cahill said. “We’re supporting our public education, protecting our reproductive rights, lowering costs for everyday Iowans, and I’ll put it out there again to legalize marijuana to raise some dollars for our state that seem to be going to Illinois and other states around us. Those are four things we’re working on and the bills we put forth will reflect that.”