Some Iowa districts support overhauling area education agencies

You get what you get, and you don’t throw a fit.

During my decade of volunteer service to a program for economically and socially disadvantaged youth, I would say that to the kids if they whined about whatever I was serving for supper at the end of the session.

For the little goobers who would end up snarfing my homemade meals, that philosophy worked well. For school districts and students in need of special education services? Not so much.

But that’s largely how special education services work right now in Iowa: Schools pass through their special ed money to AEAs (short for area education agencies) because they have to. The AEAs use it to fund their operations. Whatever those operations provide is what schools — and their students — get.

Some might not appreciate such a simple characterization of Iowa’s AEA system. Others might say it’s spot-on.

More than two months after AEA reform was introduced in the Iowa Legislature, the House passed the amended House File 2612 on Thursday evening, combining proposals to overhaul Iowa’s system of AEAs and increase base teacher pay. With its passage, Gov. Kim Reynolds’ plan to reform Iowa’s 50-year-old system for the delivery of special education services is a small step closer to enactment.

Work remains if the plan is to cross the finish line. As provisions of the House bill differ from those in the Senate version passed last Tuesday, the two chambers must reach a consensus on the plan that reaches the governor’s desk.

As is typical for monumental pieces of legislation, not everyone is on board with any version of the proposal.

It’s unsurprising that Iowa’s nine AEAs staunchly oppose the overhaul, given how the existing funding structure sets them up financially. Currently, every school district is allotted a certain amount per student in special education funding which immediately flows through the district to its respective AEA. If government is the bank, school districts are the ATMs, and the AEAs that fund operations with that money won’t get as much to spend if school districts suddenly have the option to spend some of it themselves — and decide to spend it elsewhere.

Passionate resistance has also come from many educators, students and parents who have benefited from direct services provided by AEAs and fear that a change in the structure and funding of the AEAs will result in the reduction or loss of those services. That’s more than understandable. If the AEA system is working well for some, those for whom it is will of course fight to preserve it.

But the AEA system isn’t intended to work for some. It’s intended to work for all. Not just all students, but all who participate in that system — students, parents, teachers, and yes, all school districts. And if the system intended to work for all struggles to work for some, those for whom it doesn’t work need other options.

Amid the backdrop of intense opposition, some education leaders have started to speak out in favor of having options that differ from what the AEA currently provides.

“We have to continue to evolve to support the needs of our school communities,” said Corey Seymour, superintendent for rural school district Clear Creek-Amana, at a Jan. 31 hearing for one of the AEA reform proposals. “Each district is different.”

Indeed, there are vast differences among the 26 school districts whose superintendents joined Seymour in signing a memo encouraging passage of “meaningful reform this session.” College Community in Cedar Rapids serves 5,800 students down the street from a large community college. Within district boundaries sits the headquarters of the Grant Wood AEA.

In northwest Iowa, small districts Sioux Central, Clay Central-Everly and Laurens-Marathon share a single superintendent between them.

In Storm Lake, where superintendent Stacey Cole* was named the 2023-24 Iowa Superintendent of the Year, 87% of the student population are students of color. Over half of the student body is ELL (English language-learning.)

In the tiny Humboldt County town of Bode, the Twin Rivers district lists a total of 11 teachers on its website, including the P.E. teacher (who’s also the principal.) They share a superintendent with nearby Humboldt schools.

Though vastly different in size and demographics, each of these schools’ superintendents have added their names to the call for AEA reform. Their individual reasons are as unique as their districts’ very needs.

Some districts could be wary of the financial efficacy of their regional AEA, of which Iowa has nine, all operating independently. While education leaders were scrambling to serve students during the pandemic school closures of Spring 2020, the Mississippi Bend AEA was operating under conditional accreditation after a 2018 inspection and several years of budget deficits made worse by an increase in hiring prompted intervention from the state. Full accreditation was restored in 2021.

The quick January 2024 retirement of MBAEA chief Bill Decker left the agency without a chief administrator. Stepping in as an interim chief was John Speer, chief of the Grant Wood AEA. Speer currently fills the role in both regions, which serve a combined 123,500 students in 12 counties, seemingly raising questions about the scope and demands of the chief administrator position. Speer’s compensation package totals about $340,850. Prior to retiring, Decker took home $354,289 annually.

Some districts could have concerns about how their AEA allocates funding among schools and whether those expenditures are on par with what they contribute. The Grant Wood AEA, which serves districts including Cedar Rapids, Linn-Mar and Iowa City, prepares reports for each of its member districts at least once every four years detailing that district’s use of services during the year the report is made. While the reports cite allocations made for students of the district as a percentage of total AEA dollars allocated, it doesn’t breakdown each expenditure by type.

“Because our AEA system works like a cooperative purchasing environment, that exact spending for each resource can be difficult to calculate,” said Renee Nelson, Director of Communications and Creative Services for the Grant Wood AEA in Cedar Rapids.

The reports also don’t compare totals between districts. The four-year cycle of reporting is staggered among districts, so districts can rarely work with each other to compare figures from the same school year.

Nelson provided copies of allocation reports for the Mount Vernon and Linn-Mar districts. The Mount Vernon report, from the 2020-2021 school year, showed that Mount Vernon’s enrollment of 1,108 students made up 1.5% of the 74,535 xdstudents in the AEA region. Likewise, Mount Vernon’s 92 special education students made up 1.2% of the region’s 7,708 special education students. The $494,106 allocated for support services for Mount Vernon students made for 0.9% of the AEA’s $57,596,688 total dollars allocated.

Linn-Mar’s report was from the 2022-2023 school year. A much larger school with 7,685 students or 10.4% of the 73,692 enrolled regionwide that year, the district claimed 924 students, or 9.7% of the 9,568 special ed students served. But the $3,756,855 allocated for services received by Linn-Mar made up only 5.9% of the region’s $63,768,855 total dollars allocated.

That seems lacking in parity, especially for a school as large as Linn-Mar, where financial concerns have prompted the board to eliminate 50 staff, including 19 teachers, in an effort to cut $2.5 million from their budget.

Absent totals from other districts from the same school years, schools still have the perception of their students’ progress to compare to the allocations made by the AEA for those students. If districts don’t feel that they’re getting their money’s worth, the next logical option would be to seek those services elsewhere. At least, it would be if the law allowed for them to do that while using their own special ed dollars.

Yes, if school districts find those services elsewhere, the AEAs will not receive the money for them. But if the survival and health of AEAs requires some districts to financially uphold a system that isn’t serving their needs, it becomes understandable why some want out — even after the AEA heaps pages of numbers on those districts warning them of higher overall costs for commercially purchased products and services.

Detailed resources created by the state AEA association warns that small schools would face estimated out-of-pocket costs of over $47,000 just for the same trove of digital library and media resources if the AEAs were no longer able to leverage their bulk purchasing power. For large schools, the claimed out-of-pocket increase would exceed $1 million.

But given their interest in stopping AEA reform, the AEAs aren’t a neutral source of information. Their figures don’t account for possible collaborations between districts to leverage their own purchasing power for services more finely tuned to their needs, which some districts have already started to consider.

Regardless of if, when or how AEA reform happens, supporters and opponents can agree on two things: No one who supports reform wants to destroy AEAs and hurt those who are helped by them, and no one who opposes reform wants AEAs to thrive at the expense of those who aren’t.

The reality is both: Some are getting what they need and some aren’t. Reform doesn’t guarantee that all that’s good about AEAs will be lost. But if we do nothing, underserved learners will only get what they get.

Comments: 319-398-8266; althea.cole@thegazette.com

*No known relation to the author