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SAI Weekly Legislative Update – February 21, 2025
This was week six of the legislative session and also state wrestling week, something near and dear to my heart. There were several teams (and administrators) who visited the capitol while they were in Des Moines.
Meanwhile, the Legislature “wrestled” behind the scenes regarding SSA. There was no official movement on those bills, which was a little disappointing. If you have the opportunity, encourage lawmakers to get that moving, and let them know that while none of the proposals meet our needs, we need them to move toward the House bill. They will most likely compromise with something near the House proposal, but we won’t get it all.
This week was very busy with several subcommittees that met regarding education, as well as a large number of bills being introduced. Below are many of the bills that moved. Asterisks represent bills that address issues high on our priority list.
Passed Out of Senate:
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SF 175 — Requires a certain video to be shown in Human Growth and Development classes.
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SF 171 — A bill that specifically addressed timeline issues for Orient-Macksburg (O-M) and their dissolution efforts.
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SF 278 — Approved Robotics as an activity.
Passed Out of House:
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SF 171 — O-M bill (To the Governor).
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HF 392 — A bill that allows a year-round calendar for high schools.
Passed by the House Education Committee:
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HSB 157 — Allows for equity in dropout prevention funding; has several conditions.*****
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HF 122 — SROs and operational sharing, increases the weighting.****
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HF 220 — Allows 8th graders to participate in athletics.
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HF 236 — Requires a full year of Government, but allows that to be a part of the five Social Studies units.
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HF 204 — Allows robotics as a sponsored activity.
Passed by Senate Education Committee:
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SSB1065 — Governor’s cell phone/device bill; it has an amendment to improve implementation.
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SF 64 — Addresses natural disasters and the budget guarantee.
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SF111 — Requires seizure training for school staff. It contains an amendment that will put together a group to organize, schedule, and approve all training for staff.
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SSB1030 — Requires a Civics test and a passing grade for graduates.
There were also numerous subcommittees, some of which are listed below.
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HSB 145 and SSB 1135 — Governors’ bill on preschool and continuum of care. We have been assured by the DE that all of the PK expectations and standards will be the same as the voluntary preschool standards including teacher licensure, and assessments. It does not address expansion of current programs and weighting.****
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HSB 137 and SSB 1092 — Math Counts, similar to reading initiative with improvement plans. It also includes passing a required Civics test for graduates (although we were told that they were going to take out the Civics part since they have other bills to deal with that).
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SSB 1076 — Renews whole grade sharing and reorganization incentives.****
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SSB 1100 and HF 147 — Governor’s Omnibus bill. This has several good things in it that we mostly favor, including TSS fixes, return to Teach Iowa, etc.
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HF 253 — Computer Science requirement for graduation.
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SSB 1161 — Tries to minimize bus driver training.
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SSB 1099 — Allows school threat assessment teams and sharing of information.
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HF 331 and SF 265 — Establishes a conference realignment committee to address issues.
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HF 262 — TSS efficiency bill, this addresses future TSS allocations.
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HSB 156 — Curricular materials transparency.***************************** The last bullet is a version of a bill that we dealt with last year. It requires all teachers to list all resources that they use for instruction, including textbooks, worksheets, videos, websites, etc. This would all have to be put on a website/database for viewing by parents/guardians/community members, and updated as other sources are used. We have shared how massively time consuming this would be, as well as nearly impossible to manage, and would actually take away from quality instruction.
Advocacy Points
- Advocate for 2.25% SSA, as well as all of the items in the House bill.
- Advocate for additional work on the preschool issue.
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Explain to legislators the real impact of HF 156.
Final Thought
There are some good things happening in the legislation. While we need to correct or eliminate some of the other things, don’t let those weigh down you or your staff. Remember that many of the bills that are presented will not become law, both good and bad. Stay active with your legislators whenever possible and remember, March is just around the corner.
Have a great weekend.
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