Diversity policy rescinded by Iowa City board

IOWA CITY - The Iowa City school board this week voted to rescind the district's diversity policy, which has faced legal questions since before it was passed in February 2013.

The policy, which sought to balance poverty levels in Iowa City schools by using data from a federal meal program to measure poverty, was deemed non-compliant with federal law late last year by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The board needed to decide whether to rescind or correct the policy by Jan. 31. Chris Lynch, the board's president, said last week that rescinding the policy would be necessary.

The board's policy and engagement committee now must decide on a proposal for a new diversity policy.

Brian Kirschling, the board's vice president and the committee's chairman, said he has looked at diversity policies passed by the Waterloo, Davenport, and Des Moines school districts to get ideas.

A new policy likely will use a combination of metrics to measure diversity, Kirschling and Lynch said, rather than only using the number of students in each school who qualify for free and reduced-price lunch, a common measure of poverty in schools.

Also at the board's meeting Tuesday, board members did not take up an agenda item that would have allowed the district to move forward with a tax to fund school playgrounds.

Craig Hansel, the district's chief financial officer, headed a committee that recommended pursuing the tax, called the Public Education and Recreation Levy, or PERL.

The committee recommended allowing the district to collect public input on the issue before deciding in May whether to put the levy to a September vote. But board members did not discuss the issue and did not take up any motion to approve that recommendation, board members said.

'I would say there's not interest in pursuing PERL at this time,” Lynch said, adding that the levy proposal was not on the board's agenda for its next meeting.