Gazette Daily News Podcast, June 15

It will be slightly cooler Wednesday, but the real relief won't come until the rain arrives. According to the National Weather Service a high of 94 degrees is predicted in the Cedar Rapids area with a heat index of 101. Showers and thunderstorms are likely between 4 and 10 p.m. The low is predicted to be around 61 degrees. The heat and humidity should drop a bit more on Thursday. But it doesn’t look like that will last for long…

While the Cedar Rapids school board has delayed its vote on having police officers in the school, the City Council on Tuesday unanimously backed the program — fearing it’s a matter of when, not if, an incident will occur that jeopardizes the safety of Cedar Rapids school children.

The agreement endorsed by the council calls for seven resource officers in the schools, including two stationed at middle schools.

Council members authorized the city manager to negotiate a new agreement with the school district maintaining a police presence in the schools.

The council decision came a day after the school board, in a 6-1 vote, delayed a decision on renewing their end of the school resource officer agreement, saying they wanted more discussion and data. There have been some discussions on the board, as well as concerns in the community, that the presence of officers has led to a racial imbalance in the way discipline is handled in the district.

School districts in Iowa will have access to more resources designed to help prevent school violence thanks to $100 million in federal pandemic relief funding that Gov. Kim Reynolds is putting into the state’s school safety bureau.

Reynolds announced the move Tuesday during a news conference at the state public safety offices near the Iowa Capitol complex.

The resources will include state personnel, training, and emergency communication systems, all designed to help schools prevent school violence or react to emergency events like school shootings.

Reynolds created the school safety bureau in January 2020, but the Republican-majority Iowa Legislature has not funded the bureau in the three legislative sessions since. The funding used to fund the bureau will be pulled from pandemic relief bills passed under President Trump and President Biden.

Reynolds said the $100 million infusion of federal funding will sustain the school safety bureau through 2026, and could be funded even longer pending new gun control, school safety and mental health care legislation being considered in Congress.

The UI’s Stead Family Children’s Hospital has ranked among the nation’s top 50 in seven of 10 specialties in U.S. News & World Report’s new 2022-23 “Best Children’s Hospitals” rankings released on Tuesday. It is the hospital’s best showing since 2016.

And — except for two of its seven ranked specialties that both dipped one spot — UI pediatric specialties made meaningful year-over-year gains in the U.S. News Children’s Hospital rankings.