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Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Iowa Gov. Reynolds signs bill to let Perry school pay retention bonuses
School, community still recovering from January school shooting
DES MOINES — The Perry Community School District, still recovering after a deadly shooting in January, will be able to pay retention bonuses to its staff and waive some state requirements under a bill Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed into law on Friday.
The bill, House File 2653, came after lawmakers promised to help the school and enact new safety measures after a student shot and killed two people and wounded six others at the school on Jan. 4.
Dylan Butler, 17, fatally shot 11-year-old Ahmir Jolliff and Perry High School Principal Dan Marburger, who died 10 days later from injuries sustained in the shooting, before classes began on the first day back from winter break. Six others were injured.
Butler died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said.
The law does not provide additional state funding, but it will allow the school to pay retention bonuses to its teachers and staff out of its district management tax levy. The district can spend up to $700,000 on the bonuses.
The law also waives a list of state requirements on standardized testing, instruction hours, reporting and graduation requirements for students at Perry during the current school year. Students were out of class for nearly a month after the shooting.
“As the Perry Community School District continues to heal, this legislation will provide students, teachers and staff with an additional layer of support, allowing them the flexibility they need to care for themselves and each other,” Reynolds said in a statement. “We stand with Perry and are committed to doing whatever we can to help the community recover.”
The bill was passed nearly unanimously in both chambers of the Legislature. Republican Rep. Mark Cisneros of Muscatine was the only lawmaker to vote no.
Speaking on the Senate floor on Tuesday, Sen. Chris Cournoyer, R-LeClaire, said the Iowa Association of School Boards and the Perry district worked with other school districts across the country that had experienced similar tragedies to come up with proposals to help the district recover.
Sen. Herman Quirmbach, D-Ames, supported the bill, but he said he would have liked to see the state provide the funding to pay the teachers, rather than the district having to use its existing budget. He said working to keep teachers in the district is the right thing to do.
“It’s exactly those teachers who lived through that tragedy that are the most important to retain there,” he said. “They lived through it with their students, they know what their students went through, and they are the ones who are best positioned to help the students survive and to recover.”
Rep. Carter Nordman, a Republican from Panora whose district includes Perry, managed the bill in the House.
He said teacher retention is one of the biggest problems districts deal with in the wake of school shootings.
“I want to thank Perry’s school leadership team and school board,” Nordman said. “They’ve shown great resolve throughout all of this, and have done an honorable job leading their school back to normalcy.”
Comments: cmccullough@qctimes. com
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