Bruce Lear lives in Sioux City and has been connected to Iowa’s public schools for 38 years. He taught for eleven years and represented educators as an Iowa State Education Association regional director for 27 years until retiring. He can be reached at BruceLear2419@gmail.com  

Dear Administrators and School Boards,

It’s been a tough winter. Public schools endured repeated assaults from a governor focused on consolidating power and a legislature refusing to provide a hint of check and balance on her power grab.

The public-school family is hurting.

Please, give family members, including yourselves, time to grieve and reorganize. Give yourselves grace. 

Recognize it. Acknowledge it. Do something about it.

Educators are the most optimistic people alive. After all, you help students mature from children to responsible young adults. That takes a mixture of optimism, idealism, hope, magic, and hard work. 

But please don’t pretend everything is OK when it’s not. If you smile and tell the public everything is alright, they’ll keep the party hurting public schools in power. They’ve done enough damage.

For the last decade public schools have been underfunded and recently they’ve been attacked for political gain by those who either want to get along with their leadership or want to destroy public education in Iowa. I know it’s tempting to spin what’s happened and put a good face on the coming year.

Don’t do that.

Be honest and tell the public what Governor Kim Reynolds and her Republican legislators have done to our public schools. It’s hurting the future of our kids and it’s making Iowa an unwelcoming place. 

Here are three actions you can take to mitigate what took place this legislative session.

First, send the message you won’t allow guns in your district. Please do it now, for a couple reasons. There are quite a few educators who want to know, so they can make an informed choice about staying in your district. Secondly, parents have a right to know, so they can explore open enrollment options. 

Allowing educators to be armed—even with training—is risky and expensive. It’s risky because there are few secrets in a school building. Students will know who has a weapon and where it’s stored. Accidents happen. 

Yes, the new state law provides qualified immunity for the use of reasonable force on school grounds, but liability insurance companies will likely raise premiums based on perceived risk. Money needed to educate will instead be used to insure.

Second, Area Education Agency staff are part of the education family. Iowa has already lost some 350 of these professionals across the state. I know it’s tempting to put media and educational service funds to other uses (as the new law allows), especially when state supplemental aid to your schools increased by only 2.5 percent. Please don’t reallocate those funds without first seriously talking to your teachers and support staff. Many of the AEA services are invisible but essential. Your educators can draw back the curtain on what those services are.

Think carefully in the coming years, when you will be able to contract some special education services from a private for-profit vendor. They may offer a bargain price initially and then raise the rates for more profit. It’s safer to use the AEA, a trusted vendor for the last 50 years.

It’s also tempting for large schools to become a tacit AEA for surrounding smaller districts. Don’t do it. Because the AEA provides regional service for many districts, it enjoys economy of scale. You won’t be able to sustain providing these services, and they won’t match what the AEA can provide.

Third, please let your teachers teach. The recent changes to the social studies and literature curricula hurt teacher autonomy and replaces autonomy with legislative spin. Trust your teachers and support them if there’s controversy.

Thanks for stepping up to protect public schools. The public-school family needs to watch out for one another and work to change the members of that big school board under the Golden Dome.