Most Iowans are glad to hear when a state agency makes a local government unit reimburse a citizen who has had to pay for services that the local government unit should have provided to the citizen at no charge.
That's what happened when the Iowa Department of Education (DE) determined that the Sioux City Community School District failed to provide services to a student during school hours required by his IEP. In its ruling on State Complaint 23-45, the DE ordered the District to reimburse the parents for the $31,000 they spent to provide those services for their son that the school district was obligated to provide - but didn't provide for over a year. See State Complaint 23-45.
So what does this have to do with “nonsense?” Unfortunately, the “nonsense” consists of falsified facts about this case that are being circulated as “reasons” for Iowa's governor to do away with the DE.
A few weeks ago I heard this nonsense when searching for a radio station while on the road to the Iowa State Bar Association Annual Meeting. The scanner paused and I heard someone say, "I hope the governor will get rid of the education department because it made the Sioux City Schools give a $30,000 handout to some parents who complained about how the school treated their handicapped kid.”
“Nonsense!” I thought, and restarted the scanner.
I heard it again last week when my law clerk and I were finishing lunch at a restaurant, a man sitting with some local residents in the next booth began giving his opinions about state government. His voice grew progressively louder as he complained about the agencies he thinks are “boondoggles.” Among his targets was the DE, which he described as “another boondoggle” and said, “[w]hen it’s not paying schools to feed breakfast and lunch to people’s kids, it’s making schools pay the parents of handicapped kids.”
“Nonsense! I thought. However, my face began to flush as he continued to speak, saying, “[s]ome parents complained that the Sioux City Schools didn’t perfectly teach their handicapped kid,” so the DE “ordered it [the school district] to pay them $30,000. To scrape up the money to pay them this summer, it had to close down all the city’s public swimming pools.”
The man was still ranting as my law clerk and I left the restaurant. Once we were outside, she said, “Mary - why didn’t you call him out?”
I responded that calling him out might have felt “righteous” - but it's ineffective when your purpose is to correct misinformation - especially when no one has asked for your input. Calling out someone in front of others usually makes the person angry, embarrassed, and defensive - and a person in a heightened state of emotion isn’t likely to listen to you or think about what you’re saying. As a result, by calling out someone, you've just made them feel bad without solving the problem.
The next day I sent a pleasant email to the local residents who sat with the “misspeaker,” in which I recalled the good time we had volunteering together during RAGBRAI’s stop in Coralville a few years ago. Noting that I practice education law, I wrote that I thought they’d want to know the $31,000 that the Iowa Department of Education (DE ) ordered the Sioux City Community School District (SCCSD) to pay the parents of a student with a disability was to reimburse the parents for the money the parents spent to provide services that the school district was required to provide for their son - but didn’t provide for over a year.
I also said that I checked out their lunch companion’s statement that the school district had closed Sioux City’s public swimming pools and was glad to learn that all the city pools are open at regular hours. I indicated that perhaps he’d heard that the school board recently closed two of its three high school swimming pools - but that wasn’t due to the reimbursement order. It was related to the end of the Covid emergency funding (“ESSER”) on September 30, 2024.
The school board’s minutes show that the board wanted to continue some of the programs and staff paid with those funds, the board needed to find over $7 million in the rest of its budget. The minutes of the May 13, 2024 school board work session show that those pools were built over 50 years ago and have received minimal maintenance. One pool was no longer operational. Each pool needed over $200,000 in repairs and had annual operating costs of over $50,000/year.
The School Board’s June 24 minutes, showed that the Board approved making necessary repairs to the West High School pool and permanently closing the pools at East High School and North High School unless outside third-party contributions are received to fund the necessary equipment replacement, repairs, and the annual pool operating costs.
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I didn’t expect any responses to my message. However, today, one of the recipients called and thanked me for letting him know the Iowa Department of Education had helped the parents. He explained that in the 1950s, his baby brother had polio, and later he didn’t get to go to school. The school board in his rural community said he couldn’t be educated with normal children because he couldn’t climb stairs due to his wheelchair, he had difficulty holding a pencil and speaking, and the school board thought the sight of his deformed limbs would upset other children. The man said that he always thought his brother was “really smart,” and he wished there'd been laws that would have kept the school board from refusing to educate him. I said I agreed and thanked him for sharing that with me.*
You never know where you’ll find support, so be careful when you’re tempted to call someone out.
Note: I asked him for permission to repeat his story in an article on my special education website, explaining that most younger people aren’t aware that until Congress and state legislatures passed laws requiring public schools to educate children with disabilities, school boards often excluded children who couldn't climb stairs, wouldn’t "fit" into a regular classroom, or whose appearance they thought would upset the other students. He kindly agreed as long as I kept his name private.
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