New AEA reports spell out how outcomes for special education students will be improved

CEDAR RAPIDS — Leaders at Grant Wood Area Education Agency are hoping to see improved learning outcomes for students with disabilities — particularly in literacy and math — by having its staff work more closely with educators who serve those students to ensure evidence-based practices are being used.

The efforts are part of a report created by Grant Wood AEA for the Iowa Department of Education as required by a new state law. Each of Iowa’s nine AEAs created its own report focusing on how the agencies will prioritize student services having the greatest impact on outcomes and improving efficiency and collaboration across the state, said Heather Doe, the education department’s spokeswoman, in an email to The Gazette.

“In my more than 30 years as a teacher, principal, superintendent and chief administrator, I know AEAs make a difference to teachers, families and schools. That’s unquestioned,” said John Speer, chief administrator of Grant Wood AEA, which serves a seven-county region including Linn and Johnson. “We’ve rolled up our sleeves. We’re more than willing to do the work. Before the bill was passed, we were always looking to do better, and that hasn’t changed.”

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Statehouse Republicans and Gov. Kim Reynolds last year approved legislation that shifted some funding from the AEAs — which provide special education services, support and training to schools and families — to school districts, and moved oversight of special education from the AEAs to the state education department.

The new reports are a “snapshot of only about five months time” — July to November 2024 — after the law was implemented, said Speer, who is retiring at the end of June.

The reports also detail progress AEAs have made toward reducing expenditures associated with administration and administrators by at least 30 percent by July 1, 2026.

Cindy Yelick, chief administrator of Heartland AEA — which serves counties in Central Iowa — said most of the AEAs will be close to meeting that metric this year. Heartland AEA already has reduced expenditures associated with administration by more than 25 percent since the law went into effect July 1, 2024, she said.

“I’ve worked in school districts that have had big budget reductions,” Yelick said. “You make it work. You make do with what you have. Here’s the positive for us at Heartland: We have a pretty talented team. … I would be lying if I said it hasn’t been a stretch. People are working really hard.”

How AEAs plan to improve outcomes for students

The AEAs collaborated on the reports, which detail how the agencies will work to improve learning outcomes for students with disabilities by ensuring high-quality professional development is offered to AEA staff and special education teachers in schools.

AEA staff will prioritize spending time in school buildings with teachers and students, create task teams to develop more consistent practices and have a statewide plan to train staff in best practices, according to the report from Grant Wood AEA.

Special education teachers will receive more consistent and deliberate mentoring, similar to Grant Wood AEA’s existing Mentoring and Induction Consortium for teachers during their first two years in the profession.

Research shows this approach to mentoring improves retention among new teachers, and Grant Wood AEA staff hope it can do the same for special education teachers. Thirty to 40 percent of Iowa teachers leave the state after three years, but Grant Wood AEA consortium members see a 95 percent retention rate among new teachers, according to its data.

“If teachers have improved skills and strategies to use, they’re going to use those and students and families will see more growth in literacy and math,” said Melissa Ford, director of student services for Grant Wood AEA.

The reports show agencies prioritizing the delivery of professional development to special education teachers and becoming more consistent in their practices across the state, said Kristi Upah, Heartland AEA chief student services officer.

One of those evidence-based practices is explicit instruction — a teaching method that matches instruction to an individual student’s disability-related needs, Upah said.

“You are individualizing instruction for kids day-in and day-out, but there are some big components of how you go about that that are evidence-based,” Upah said. “I want to ensure our AEA staff know evidence-based practices and can coach, model and support special education teachers in the implementation of those practices.”

The Grant Wood AEA report also states that the AEA system will work to improve Child Find — the process used to determine if a child needs special education services and supports — to increase the knowledge and skills of all agency staff engaged in eligibility decisions.

Each state is required by federal law to identify and evaluate children with disabilities, birth to 21, to determine their need for special education services. The law is known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. In Iowa, AEAs are tasked with conducting Child Find activities.

Ford said improving Child Find “can help improve student outcomes rapidly” by more quickly identifying the students who need services.

Another change outlined in the report from Grant Wood AEA is creating statewide leadership groups — which began in fall 2024 — for AEA staff in areas of occupational therapy, physical therapy, speech language pathology, audiology and school-based social workers and psychologists.

Regular collaboration on evidence-based practices among these specialists ensures a standard of service across the state, Ford said.

How the reports will be used

Speer said he does not believe the reports — which are hundreds of pages long — will be helpful to a task force created to make recommendations about the AEAs.

“Although it provides a lot of data, it is so massive. It would be hard for (the task force) to coalesce all that information,” Speer said.

The task force, created under the new state law and made up of 11 public members and six, non-voting legislative members, held its first meeting in December. Its members decided to wait until February to give time to gather information and get more feedback on the impact of the new law.

Yelick, who is a member of the task force, said there are “themes” that might be helpful to task force members to better understand what services AEAs offer, what areas AEAs employees specialize in and how AEAs are different from school districts.

“We always want to be sure we’re reinforcing the message that even in this very significant change, we are not taking our eyes off our target to help kids and families and teachers and schools. Our mission does not change that we are a support for students and increasing outcomes for all kids,” Yelick said.

Over the next few years, AEAs will gather data on the changes to determine the “best approach” and how to continue to make improvements, Ford said.

But to effectively implement these changes, AEAs need time to “stabilize” after changes made by lawmakers last year, leaders say.

“It would be our hope we would have time to stabilize the system before more changes are made. You can’t undergo a massive change like our system has and double down. If we are really allowed to do the things we’ve identified in this report, I think we certainly will make an impact,” Speer said.

“Our greatest hope is we have time to stabilize, say here are the things making a difference for kids and here’s what we’re going to focus on,” Yelick said.

What are the changes made to AEAs?

Reynolds last year told legislators that changes were needed because the AEAs have grown beyond their core mission of serving students with disabilities, and some have become bloated and ineffective. Further, the Republican governor said the results of that are “troubling,” asserting that Iowa disabled students were performing under national averages.

But the 2024 Legislature did not go as far as she proposed, passing House File 2612 as a compromise. Reynolds said the new law would improve transparency of the cost of AEA services.

In the first year, Iowa school districts are receiving 60 percent of the funds for media services and education services that used to go to the AEAs. The districts can choose to use those funds with the AEAs, or with an outside party, and the money can be spent on any general fund purpose.

Once the new law is fully implemented in its second year, 10 percent of state funding for special education services will remain with districts for them to use, while 90 percent will continue to flow directly to the AEAs.

“We hope special education remains operating that way,” Speer said. “The level of services a district gets shouldn’t be predicated on the dollar amount they can produce. It should continue to be a fee-less service. It’s the best way to operate the system.

“You shouldn’t have winners or losers when talking about students with special needs. Everyone should be afforded the same opportunities regardless of their location or school size,” Speer said.

Also in the second year, all state funding for other education services and media services will go directly to schools — which could use that money with AEAs or get services from another entity.

Previously, federal and state special education funding went directly to the agencies. AEAs also receive property tax funding for media services and other education services for schools in their region.

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