Governor Terry Branstad signed changes to collective bargaining for public employees on Friday and reactions are still being made across the state.

Paton-Churdan Schools Superintendent Kreg Lensch says one of the biggest changes is getting rid of seniority for teachers, which can present a bigger challenge for school districts.

“I think every administrator has been there, when you’re dealing with someone that probably is in the profession that they shouldn’t be, they obviously lose some of their old protections. But I don’t know if that’s a bad thing either, not that you’re looking to get rid of staff members of anything like that. But I think it clears that path a little easier than it use to.”

Greene County Schools Superintendent Tim Christensen says the new collective bargaining law will help control payroll issues and allow school boards the ability to take items from the teacher’s union master contract and put it into a board policy instead.

Democrat candidate for governor Rich Leopold believes the issue needs to be revisited.

“We cannot do this. Our state workers, our civil servants, our people that we value. These are people that are teachers, and firefighters, and highway patrolmen and people like that. How can we just dismiss them out of hand and take that away from them after 42 years.”

Both Greene County and Paton-Churdan School boards didn’t finalize their negotiations with their respective teacher’s unions before the bill was signed into law.