Iowa House passes AEA bill to reorganize state's special education structure

DES MOINES — The Iowa House on Thursday passed a bill that reorganizes the funding and oversight of Iowa’s area education agencies, the first major milestone for the proposal after lawmakers spent the past two months weighing changes to the state’s special education network.

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House Republicans proposed House File 2612 after they blocked a more expansive and dramatic proposal from Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican, 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.

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 bill passed, 53-41, with only Republican votes. Nine Republicans joined Democrats in voting against the bill.

House Education Committee Chair Skyler Wheeler, R-Hull, said on the House floor that the bill was the product of countless hours of conversation with stakeholders. He said there is broad agreement that changes need to be made to the AEA system.

“One thing was true throughout all of this. Everybody agreed that there were areas to improve and that we could make changes,” Wheeler said. “The AEAs have been included in this conversation more than anybody … We’ve worked diligently, and I’m proud of the work that we’ve done.”

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.

Dems disagree

House Democrats said there is no need for changes to the AEA system, and that the call for changes was based on faulty assumptions about poor test scores and performance of students with disabilities.

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Democrats said they supported the piece of the bill that calls for a task force to study the structure and services of the AEAs, but they did not want to make any changes before convening that study group.

“There is no reason for the rest of the bill,” said Rep. Sharon Sue Steckman, D-Mason City. "The task force will do it for us. Then next year, we can make an intelligent decision instead of a rushed one."

Reynolds has cited scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress to explain the need for Iowa to improve its special education instruction.

Iowa’s students with disabilities have scored below the national average over the past several years, according to a report from Guidehouse, a Virginia-based firm that contracted with the state to study its special education services and created a report that suggested many of the changes in Reynolds’ original bill.

But Democrats said that test is taken by so few students with disabilities that it should not be used to measure the performance or effectiveness of the AEAs. Around 530 students with individualized education plan took part in the most recent national survey — less than 1 percent of the state’s students in special education.

“We don’t know how the tested students were selected. We don’t know if they were representative of all the students with disabilities,” said Rep. Monica Kurth, D-Davenport. “But what we do know is that those students were about one-third of 1 percent of our students with disabilities.”

NAEP scores are one factor the federal Department of Education uses to determine whether states are properly educating students with disabilities. The Guidehouse report also found a 41 percent proficiency gap between Iowa students with disabilities and those without disabilities in the Iowa Statewide Assessment of Student Progress.

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Mike Beranek, the president of the Iowa State Education Association — the union representing the state's public school teachers — said in a statement that the bill is “not as draconian” as Reynolds' first proposal, but that it was still unnecessary.

"As this legislation moves forward, we implore the Senate and Gov. Reynolds to commit to doing what is right for all Iowans and take no action that would reduce services for any students," he said. "Doing anything else is irresponsible."

What is in the bill?

Iowa's nine AEAs, which are governmental agencies separate from the Department of Education, provide special education support to school districts in their boundaries and assist with classroom equipment and media services, professional development and talented and gifted instruction, among other services.

Right now, the services are largely funded by property taxes and federal special education dollars.

Beyond the funding changes, the bill would bring the AEAs under the Iowa Department of Education and create a new state Division of Special Education to oversee them. The division would handle oversight and federal and state compliance for educating students with disabilities.

The bill would move the AEAs’ governing boards to an advisory capacity and require state approval of AEA budgets. The salary for AEA administrators would be capped at 125 percent of the average salary of all the school superintendents within the AEA’s boundary.

The bill also would establish a task force to study the AEAs, led by the legislative leaders of both parties.

The group would assess and make recommendations related to property owned by the AEAs, the services they provide, the accountability and oversight measures in place, the organizational structure of special education in Iowa and a timeline for staffing modifications at the AEAs.

Republicans amended the bill on the floor Thursday that would bring back the option for school districts and AEAs to share staff like social workers and special education coordinators.

The amendment also makes the number of field employees for the state Division of Special Education flexible, with up to 40 employees split between the nine AEAs. The division would hire 13 new employees based in Des Moines.

Cautious support from moderates

Two Republicans who have, in the past, opposed some education priorities of their party, said during debate they were not thrilled about the bill, but they ultimately supported it because they did not think it would hurt special education in the state.

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Rep. Brent Siegrist, a R-Council Bluffs, said the House version of the bill was a major improvement over the original proposal from Reynolds. He said that while the bill gives him “some heartburn,” it is a step in the right direction.

“It’s fair to say this was on nobody’s agenda coming into the session,” Siegrest said. “None of us heard about it going door to door. But this issue was brought to us, and I congratulate Rep. Wheeler and everybody else that’s worked on this to try to make something that is certainly palatable to move ahead.”

Wheeler said the criticism coming from Democrats revolved around the priorities and motivations of the governor’s original bill and not the House bill. He said the House bill was not based on any test scores or the report that motivated Reynolds’ proposal by Guidehouse.

Wheeler said a number of school superintendents were on board with the bill, saying they would be able to personalize their district’s special education services and spend their money more efficiently. He also noted that several organizations who were originally against the bill had switched their registration to undecided.

“Giving them the money, letting them have the money and disperse it as they need throughout their school district, I believe will improve outcomes for students,” he said.

Wheeler, who has a daughter who has autism, said that he took the bill on early in the session because the issue was personal.

“I gave myself this bill, not because I wanted to punish myself, not because I was the chair of (the Education Committee) and therefore I had to do it,” he said. “I gave myself this bill because I believed if there was going to be something that affected my daughter's future directly I was going to have my hands on it.”

Comments: cmccullough@qctimes.org