(C) Iowa Capital Dispatch
This story was originally published by Iowa Capital Dispatch and is unaltered.
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Rural Iowa needs AEAs. Now is the time to speak up and save them • Iowa Capital Dispatch [1]
['Teri Hockenson', 'More From Author', 'March']
Date: 2024-03-18
I’m a teacher, and I’ve spent my entire career in special education.
That career began at a rural school district in northwest Iowa, until, after 10 years, I was given an opportunity to become a special education consultant at the Great Prairie Area Education Agency in southern Iowa. It was a big change, but an easy choice. Iowa’s AEAs are a jewel in our public education system, providing incredible support for teachers like me and amazing services and opportunities for the kids we serve.
As an AEA special education consultant, I advocate for parents, teachers and, most importantly, the children I work with. Their needs – not the district’s – are my first and only priority. I collaborate and support teachers in developing individual student goals and ensuring every kid receives the best and most appropriate special education services and support based on their needs. I ensure that parents understand those services and have a voice in their child’s education. Schools rely on AEA consultants. We solve problems and advise teachers and principals. We work with students at every level of education, from age 3 to 21.
Our work is personal, incremental, and essential. It’s measured in the daily success of our kids – no matter what they need or where they live. What we do is important – and it’s under threat.
Gov. Kim Reynolds and Republicans in the Legislature (including many from southeast Iowa, where my agency serves more than 35,000 students across 32 school districts and nine private schools) are pushing bills that will dismantle the AEA system. Their plans vary, but the effect is the same: services will be slashed, budgets will be cut, and educational resources now available to every student and every teacher will be diminished, restricted or eliminated altogether.
For example, the Senate proposal will turn each AEA into a “fee for service” provider of special education, media, and education services – meaning those services ultimately would be available only if a school district contracts with the AEA.
That’s a huge change – and a bad one for kids, educators, and communities.
A fee-for-service approach eliminates stability and predictability in AEA funding and programming, leaving the agencies dependent on how many and which school districts sign up from one year to the next. It could effectively end local, personalized access to special-education services for many small and rural districts.
Our AEA system is essential to ensuring rural students have access to the same services as students in the cities and suburbs. By allowing some districts (likely larger or wealthier ones, which can afford to provide those services themselves) to opt out, the system will be robbed of the resources it needs to ensure those equal services.
Rural communities – and rural kids – will lose out.
Under the bills being pushed by the governor and her allies in the Legislature, schools will be hard pressed to find and provide the services high-needs students need to become the best person they can be. That’s the reality we’re facing in Albia, where I work, and hundreds of smaller communities all across Iowa.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
Since Gov. Reynolds announced this plan back in January, Iowans have raised their voices and so far prevented the Republican-led Legislature from destroying our AEAs. But now we’re reaching a critical stage in the legislative process, and Iowans must keep up the pressure.
I live in a conservative part of the state, and just about all of my local elected representatives are Republicans. Believe me, they’ve heard from me. Your legislators need to hear from you, too.
Find your local legislators. Email them. Call them up. Go to their forums. Find them and tell them to vote “no” on the AEA bills.
Now more than ever, our lawmakers need to listen to us. They need to listen to parents, educators and community leaders – not party leaders and out-of-state consultants who don’t understand how our AEAs work or the benefits they provide.
The message for lawmakers is clear: Save our AEAs. Drop these bad bills.
If lawmakers want to improve special education services, let’s do that. Bring all of the stakeholders to the table. Create a bipartisan committee. Conduct a high-quality, comprehensive review. We can improve education for Iowa kids – but not by destroying our AEAs.
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