Greene County School District Superintendent Brett Abbotts
A new law has all public school districts setting up formal policies, with some starting the process of having them approved by their respective school boards.
Senate File 2428 was signed into law by Governor Kim Reynolds which addresses non-violent and violent disruptive student behavior in classrooms. At their August meeting, the Greene County School Board recently approved the first of two required readings of the new policies.
Superintendent Brett Abbotts says the law outlines several different aspects, including creating what constitutes a removal, along with a mandatory removal; establish an oversight committee for each school building, determine re-admission rules for each grade level before a student is allowed to return to the classroom and students with Individual Education Plans (IEPs) or 504 plans have different criteria to follow.
Abbotts points out that prior to this new law, they already had a procedure in place for disruptive behaviors and removals from classrooms.
“It’s very much something that we have encountered before and we have had processes that we have put in place. When there has been a student removed from a classroom, we do go through a readmission processes. This is just now it’s required by law and it’ll just be much more defined.”
Abbotts notes that the policy was first introduced to the Iowa Department of Education this past May and it takes time for several other entities to poke holes at it and see it continuously change since then.
“Because initially what came out versus what is now present has shifted just a little bit. So it’s given us some time to sort of pivot as the Department of Education continues to pivot with it so that when we actually go to approve the policy or create our guidelines, not having to do a complete and total overhaul of what we’ve created simply because the interpretation of the law has sort of shifted.”
The School Board is expected to approve the second reading of the new policies at their next meeting on September 9th. Click the link below to see the policies.