Here are some of the things that exemplify the impact of the proposed plan by Governor Reynolds to dismantle the current AEA system.
Districts work collaboratively with AEAs to design the services the district needs from the AEA. At this time of the school year, there is a lot of conversation about what the summer will look like as well as the beginning of school and for the upcoming school year. This not only includes AEA staff assignments but what AEA supported professional learning and other services and supports will look like in the district.
Many schools are on the targeted list for special education and are required to engage in AEA supported professional learning. This includes some training for all staff and even more training for special education teachers, coaches, and administrators. They are designing this professional learning NOW and will deliver it this spring, summer, and next school year. Perhaps, based on a thorough data review, they also determine they need professional learning for paras and professional learning around behavior. This is also being designed and a calendar is being created for this NOW.
So, let’s say this proposed plan goes through by March 1st. All of the AEA administrators, educational services staff, and media staff are told they will not have jobs as of July 1st. A new Executive Director will be appointed by the state of Iowa and they will start sometime prior to July 1st?? The AEAs will need to meet with each district this spring to determine what services the district wants and it could be all of the special education services they are getting now, no AEA special education services, or part of the services they are currently getting. Until those decisions are made, the AEA will have no idea what budget they will have for next year. The state will also seize all property owned by the current AEAs, sell those properties, and give the funds to the General Fund, not for any educational expenses. The current funding that goes to AEAs for educational services and media will now go for property tax relief and will not go to school districts. To replace those services, schools will have to pay for those services out of existing funds.
In the meantime, the Iowa Department of Education will be hiring 139 positions to start July 1st and those folks who are being terminated from the AEA will be given preference. The DE (which has a skeleton staff right now) will then determine who is doing what, train all the new staff, and then send the staff out to work with school districts to collaboratively design the services needed prior to school starting???? I am a big dreamer, but even I can’t dream that big. This is an entity that struggles to post and hire a position even when one person leaves and everyone agrees the position needs to be replaced.
Many districts, in collaboration with their AEA, are moving, and have been moving, in a positive direction with the support of their AEA. There appears to be a false notion out there that the AEA determines what services the school will get when, in fact, the AEA designs their services to meet the needs of individual districts. For example, when I was at Cedar Rapids we used the AEA for mentoring of new teachers, literacy and other content area professional learning, PBIS training and coaching, mandatory trainings, library and digital resources, and much more. We constantly met with our Regional Administrators to design and adjust services based on our needs. It truly was a partnership. This was also the way it was when I was Special Education Director for Prairie Lakes AEA. Our Regional Administrators were part of the district team, not just there for special education only. Now it will be on schools to design all of these services outside of special education on their own with no additional funds.
This will paralyze our public educational system and kids will lose. If the impetus behind this decision is to improve student achievement for students with disabilities I can guarantee you that the gap will increase when general education loses so many supports. Students on IEPs do not spend all day in special education classes being served by special education teachers. One of the best ways to improve special education is to keep students from needing IEP services by successfully serving students before they need to be entitled and to ensure that students with IEPs have meaningful access to the general education curriculum.
Again, I am begging the legislature to go back to what was initially communicated. Spend the next 12 months studying the AEA system by looking at relevant data such as focus groups with AEA staff, school staff, parents, students, and community partners, including a root cause analysis of why there is such a gap in special education. The study should also include observations of AEA services, a thorough data review, and an analysis of best practices that have led to improvement in results for students with disabilities. Once this analysis is complete a plan for reform should be created, public input should be gathered around the plan, and then a thorough plan of implementation needs to be created. I would love to see a plan for how everything in this new legislation will be implemented so that required services, as well as services that benefit students, are sustained for the remainder of this school year and next.
The only way studying this for a year is a negative is if this plan is about punishing public school education even more and the need for that punishment being so great that it can’t wait a year to be inflicted upon them.