Education

Eastern Iowa child care providers will be adding almost 700 new child care slots after being awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars through Iowa’s Child Care Grants Project.

The agreement with Champions will provide extended learning opportunities for Cedar Rapids students and families and will include before and after school programming, summer programming and wraparound services for preschool students.

Following a vast and swift trend sweeping four-year colleges and universities nationally, the Iowa Board of Regents is moving to permanently eliminate the mandate that applicants to their public universities submit either SAT or ACT scores.

The State of Iowa has agreed to pay the former director of a University of Iowa program for students with disabilities $325,000 to settle her lawsuit accusing the institution and Board of Regents of age and gender discrimination and of violating her civil rights for equal pay.

Iowa’s public universities for years have requested legislative funding increases — promising to commit the extra tens of millions they sought to student aid, mental health, and more recently hybrid learning in an age of COVID-19 — but the asks have fallen flat.

Talks between Steindler Orthopedic Clinic and an unnamed hospital system to build a new inpatient hospital alongside an ambulatory surgery center in what’s fast becoming a health care hub in North Liberty are ongoing — but they’re not moving fast enough to merit state consideration at this time.

Education leaders advocate that the Iowa Legislature set state supplemental aid at 5 percent to adequately fund schools and attract more teachers.

Also, Iowa school districts are waiting on a Supreme Court decision on whether COVID-19 vaccines, weekly testing can be required for staff