Private school students would still receive special education services under proposed AEA bills, but educators worry about funding

• Proposed bills in the Iowa House and Senate would change funding and oversight of Iowa's nine area education agencies.
• AEAs support all accredited non-public schools in Iowa with special education services and other needs, like media technology and professional development for teachers.
• Private school educators wonder how the services they've received from Iowa's AEAs would be funded if one of the two bills is signed into law.

CEDAR RAPIDS — It is unclear how special education services for Iowa students in private schools would be funded if proposed legislation that would reorganize the funding and oversight of Area Education Agencies is approved by lawmakers.

Private school educators also worry how the proposed bills would affect their ability to pay for media and other education services that are crucial to teaching students and are currently provided by AEAs.

“It looks like the bill allows non-public schools to participate in every program we current participate in (barring AEAs choosing to not provide them anymore) but it does not clearly state how the dollars will flow through public districts to the AEA to provide those services,” according to a letter posted to the Iowa Association of Christian Schools’ website earlier this month.

What would the proposed bills do?

Last month, House Republicans proposed House File 2612 after they blocked a more expansive and dramatic proposal from Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds that would have allowed school districts to spend their special education dollars outside the AEAs.

The House bill keeps Iowa’s AEAs as the sole provider of special education support in the state. State funding for special education services would go to the school districts, and they would be required to use that funding with the AEAs.

Public school districts would receive an allocation for media services and other education services that has been provided to the AEAs, and the districts would be able to choose whether to use that money with the AEAs or with another party once the bill is fully phased in for the 2026-27 school year.

The Senate AEA bill, Senate File 2386, has moved out of committee, but it has not reached a floor vote. The bill differs significantly from the House proposal, and it would allow schools to seek special education services outside the AEAs. The chambers will need to agree on a single bill in order to send it to Reynolds to be signed into law.

This leaves non-public school officials wondering where they fit into the allocation for media and other education services that is currently funded by “flow through” dollars, tax dollars and state funds that literally “flow through” local school district budgets to the AEA.

  Buy Photo

How do special education services work at private schools?

AEAs support all accredited non-public schools in Iowa. AEA staff support non-public school students who have Individualized Education Plans, legal documents developed for each child in the U.S. who needs special education created through a team of the child’s parent and educators.

Non-public schools receive special education services from the AEAs like occupational therapy, physical therapy, speech language pathology and audiology on-site.

For other special education needs like academic and behavior goals, public school officials work with the private school to determine the “most appropriate place for those services to be implemented,” according to the AEA. While the student still is enrolled in the non-public school and does the majority of their learning there, this means that some students do receive special education services at a public school.

The AEAs also provide educational services and media and technology support to every accredited non-public school.

Private school educators want bills to clarify funding

Cathy Walz, superintendent of schools for the Archdiocese of Dubuque, said non-public schools need the bill to clarify how they would continue to access funding for AEA services that meet the needs of students and staff.

The Archdiocese of Dubuque oversees around 12,000 students in 44 Catholic schools in the northeastern part of the state, including Cedar Rapids.

“Anything we would need to pay for that we’re not currently paying for would be something we would have to take into consideration,” Walz said.

The AEAs would still be required under federal law to provide services to students in special education who have Individualized Education Plans. There are specific requirements for “timely and meaningful” consultation between districts and the non-public schools within their district which fulfills the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act requirements, a federal law that makes available free public education to students with disabilities and ensures special education and related services to those children.

AEAs help teachers improve, integrate technology

At St. Pius X Elementary School in Cedar Rapids, students and educators work with experts from Grant Wood AEA who provide support in digital learning, occupational therapy, speech language therapy, literacy and assistive technology.

Grant Wood AEA serves seven counties in Eastern Iowa, including Linn and Johnson, and 15 state accredited non-public schools.

  Buy Photo

Some — but not all — of these services are required to be provided to students through their IEPs. But a lot of services, like technology integration, are just a part of continuously improving teaching and learning practices for all students, said Stephanie Sears, principal at St. Pius X.

Janette Beer, a student support service teacher at St. Pius X, said the services provided to them by the AEA are “invaluable.”

“Our teachers can’t be experts in everything,” Beer said.

Some of the accommodations students at St. Pius X are using include speech to text options that enable students to talk and for that to be converted automatically into text. This can be important for students with dyslexia, for example, Beer said.

The technology can also go the other way — reading text to students and even simplifying it for students who are reading below grade level, Beer said.

If one of these bills is signed into law, school officials worry they would lose experts in teaching and learning advancements, who right now are just a phone call away.

AEA administrator: Consortium maximizes savings

Non-public schools also rely on support they contract with the AEAs to provide. They worry these services could be made more expensive if school districts choose to use another party — an option under the bill.

  Buy Photo

There is increased efficiency in AEA purchasing media and educational support products and maximized savings in group purchasing for public and non-public schools, said John Speer, chief administrator at Grant Wood and Mississippi Bend AEAs.

The bills could present “pain points” for schools if they don’t contract with the AEAs for services they discover they later need, Speer said.

“The pain point would come in October, for example, when a school realized it didn’t contract with us for something they need. There’s a good chance we couldn’t provide that at that point because we would only staff for what is contracted,” Speer said.

“If you didn’t contract with a teacher for deaf and hard of hearing students because you’ve never had a student who needed that service, but in November a student moves in who does need that service, I’m not sure what the district would do,” Speer said.

Whether it’s special education, education services, or media, schools would have to find it from a private provider if they don’t contract it with the AEAs, Speer said. That could potentially be more costly. “Commercial services is more expensive than AEA provided services,” he said.

Hillcrest Academy, a private Christian school in Kalona, relies on the almost 30 online resources Grant Wood AEA subscribes to and makes available to schools in its service region. This includes resources like EBSCO, the leading provider of research databases, e-journals, magazine subscriptions and e-books.

The cost of these resources to Grant Wood AEA is $170,000, Speer said. The consortium makes it affordable. It would cost millions if Iowa school districts were to purchase these online resources individually, Speer said.

Teachers: AEA experts make a ‘huge difference’

Hillcrest also is a part of Grant Wood AEA’s mentoring and induction program for new teachers. The consortium provides professional development to teachers during their first two years in the profession.

While up to 40 percent of Iowa teachers leave the state after three years, Grant Wood AEA consortium members saw a 95 percent retention rate among new teachers thanks in part to this program.

Megan Walsh, a sixth grade math and social studies teacher at Hillcrest Academy, said the coach she meets with weekly from Grant Wood AEA ensures her students “get the best quality education” from her.

This is Walsh’s first year teaching, and she said she’s “shiny, squeaky clean.”

Her Grant Wood AEA coach “observes me teach. It’s a time for me to sit down with an unbiased, completely neutral person that can help me figure out what’s working and what I can do better.”

Beth Swantz is a sixth grade science and reading teacher at Hillcrest Academy who returned to the classroom this year after almost a decade as a digital learning consultant at Grant Wood AEA.

Swantz said teachers often feel “isolated in their own bubble of their classroom.” This can be especially true in private schools where there is often one teacher for each content area, she said.

Experts from the AEA make a “huge difference,” by providing training that supports teachers in their classrooms, Swantz said.

April Bickford, head of schools at the PK-8th grade Summit school in Cedar Rapids, said she attributes improved math scores this year to the monthly meetings Summit teachers have had with Grant Wood AEA math consultants.

On the iReady assessment, Summit saw an improvement from 47 students to 75 students meeting grade level standards in math on the K-8 assessment.

If non-public schools can’t access the same level of services through the AEAs that they do now, Bickford said it could “negatively impact teachers and the quality of education they can provide students.”

Caleb McCullough of the Gazette-Lee Des Moines Bureau contributed to this report.

Comments: (319) 398-8411; grace.king@thegazette.com