Iowa City School Board committee to discuss diversity policy

An Iowa City school board committee on Thursday will discuss the district's diversity policy, which late last year was deemed not to comply with federal law by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The policy, first passed by the school board in February 2013, is designed to balance poverty levels in Iowa City schools, using the numbers of students with free and reduced-price lunch at each school to measure poverty.

The USDA in November confirmed that the district cannot use that data as the policy calls for, because it could publicly identify the students in the lunch program.

The Iowa Department of Education, which has acted as a mediator of sorts in the legal disagreement betewen the district and USDA, gave the district until Jan. 31 to correct or rescind the policy.

Correcting the non-compliant parts of the policy could make the policy ineffective, school officials have said.

State officials first told the school district in January 2013 that the policy likely would not comply with federal law.