An Iowa House bill has moved to the Senate regarding changes to the Area Education Agencies (AEAs).

House District 47 Representative Carter Nordman tells Raccoon Valley Radio the AEA bill is its own version and not what the governor first proposed at the beginning of the legislative session. He points out what this bill does not do if it is signed into law.

“This bill does not disrupt special education services, this bill does not terminate a single employee at an AEA, and this bill does not prohibit the AEAs from performing any other services that they provide now. So I think those are very important, and I think that’s a message that every AEA employee needs to hear and every special educator and teacher in Iowa needs to hear.”

Nordman says the House bill phases in how the flow of the state and federal funding mechanism comes into a school district and it stops there to allow individual districts how they see the funds should be spent.

“When it comes to accountability, schools know best what their special education students need. And so I think this bill begins to address that problem.” 

Nordman adds that the bill also allows for the creation of a task force that will review the performance of an AEA with stakeholders from several sectors in the state before any changes in services would be considered. He notes that the AEA was originally registered against the legislation, but has since changed to no longer being against it. He says the superintendents in his district are, for the most part, agreeable to the items in the House bill, which is now in the Senate for consideration.