M-P board sets legislative priorities

By Molly Roberts
Posted 7/14/21

The Mid-Prairie Board of Education decided on their five Iowa Association of School Boards legislative priorities for the 2022 school year, including mental health, area education agencies, teacher …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

E-mail
Password
Log in

M-P board sets legislative priorities

Posted

The Mid-Prairie Board of Education decided on their five Iowa Association of School Boards legislative priorities for the 2022 school year, including mental health, area education agencies, teacher recruitment and licensure, supplemental state aid and bond issues. This list does not reflect priority order.

The priorities were chosen from a list provided by the IASB and were the same that the board chose last year.

There was discussion of adding considerations of the Iowa athletic associations to the list. Iowa has two separate associations for boys and girls: the Iowa High School Athletics Association for boys and the Iowa High School Girls Athletic Union for girls.

Superintendent Mark Schneider said that Iowa is the only state to have separate governing bodies for boys and girls.

Board member Jeremy Pickard said the dual-association system is not efficient for the state’s high school athletics.

“What some people want to paint it as, by saying out loud that [the two systems are inefficient], you’re against girls’ sports, and that couldn’t be further from the truth,” Pickard said. “When you have new sports coming on board, like wrestling that was primarily a boys sport but now there are a ton of females participating in that, they have a hard time trying to figure out where to drop wrestling because we have two separate associations.”

Pickard said he has previously considered circulating a petition to other schools to try to encourage the IASB to have a conversation about the dual-association system.

“I think it was probably honorable on why [they created two associations] way back in the day to lift up girls’ sports,” Pickard said. “But to say by merging them that we’re against girls’ sports and girls’ activities couldn’t be farther from the truth.”

Schneider said he would also be greatly in favor of a feasibility study to determine the pros and cons of having separate athletic associations.

Ultimately, however, the school board elected to keep the same five legislative priorities as determined last year.

The board also approved an agreement with VESTA Modular for a 36-month lease of two two-classroom modular buildings to be used as music rooms at West and East Elementary. Schneider said the modular classrooms will likely be delivered in July and hopes they will be functional and ready for classes at the start of the school year.

A group of music teachers previously approached the board in April 2021 about the need for additional space to teach their classes.