Governor says administrators should speak up about education reform

DES MOINES – Gov. Terry Branstad said school administrators should lobby lawmakers to speed up passage of his education reform package if they're worried about completing their budgets soon.

"The bill's in conference committee. Contact their legislators. Tell them to get it resolved this week, and then they'll know," the governor said during a Monday news conference.

Statute requires school districts to certify their budgets by April 15, but the districts don't know how much state aid is coming.

House Republicans proposed a 2 percent increase in general state aid in their version of the education reform package. The Senate put in a 4 percent increase. A conference committee of 10 lawmakers is expected to meet Tuesday to begin hashing out the bill.

“Here's the thing: We've been working on this from the very beginning, and the House passed it on February 20th. They finally got it to conference, and I believe it can be worked out,” Branstad said. “We need the major education reform we've been working on for three years.”

State Rep. Ron Jorgensen, R-Sioux City, is a former school board member and one of the co-chairs of the conference committee. He's not sure how long it will take to reach a compromise.

“Until we have that first meeting to find out where they are, it's difficult to say how it might go,” Jorgensen said. “I've told my superintendent that my intent is to move it along as fast as possible. That's why we had our bill done by the 20th of February.”

Lobbyist Margaret Buckton of the Urban Education Network said “there's significant stress” among her member school districts because a deal hasn't been reached. The organization represents the 16 largest school districts in the state.

“We believe the floor is 2 percent in the House and 4 percent in the Senate, but it could all fall apart and wind up back at zero,” she said.

Asked about the advice she's giving her member districts, Buckton said, “I tell them call your legislator, tell them you need 4 percent, and you need it fast.”

The governor added that he's not giving up hope the Legislature will pick up his anti-bullying bill this year, even though the bill didn't make it through the Legislature's self-imposed funnel deadline last week.

The bill stalled after legislators criticized the bill for going too far, while others thought it didn't go far enough.

Some were concerned about the authority given school officials to get involved in off-campus bullying incidents. Although the legislation made it clear school officials weren't required to act, some lawmakers thought it extended the power too far. Other lawmakers said money needs to be set aside for additional staff training.

“I have been around this system for a long time, and it's not dead until it's dead,” Branstad said.

He said the bill could come back as an amendment or some other way to make it into law this year.

“This is something I think makes sense, I can't imagine why we wouldn't try to give our schools the tools they need to try to combat bullying,” Branstad said. “We want to make sure our teachers and our students and our parents have the tools and the information they need to combat bullying.”