(Radio Iowa) – The University of Iowa’s Athletics Department will be covering the entire cost of this week’s legal settlement with ex-football players. The announcement came at an early (Thursday) morning House subcommittee meeting on a bill to force the university to make that move, rather than use two million dollars in taxpayer money to cover nearly half of the payout. Keith Saunders is chief government relations officer for the board that oversees the university. He read legislators a statement from University of Iowa president Barbara Wilson.

Wilson expressed appreciation to Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird for negotiating the settlement and to the State Appeal Board for approving the agreement on Tuesday. These were Wilson’s first public comments on the settlement. Saunders read all three sentences aloud, including this final sentence from Wilson.

An statement from the university emphasized that the Athletics Department “is a self-sustaining unit that does not receive tuition revenue or taxpayer support. Representative Carter Nordman, a Republican from Adel, says taxpayers should never have been required to cover this.

Nordman said also…

Attorneys for a dozen former University of Iowa players who alleged the Hawkeye football program was a racially hostile environment will be paid about half of the settlement and the 12 players will split the rest equally.

(Radio Iowa) – Books with obscene or graphic sexual content would have to be removed from the libraries in Iowa schools if a bill that’s cleared the Iowa House becomes law. Republican Representative Brook Boden of Indianola says the bill makes it clear sexually explicit content is not age appropriate for students. “I honestly cannot believe that this is a bill that we need to pass, but unfortunately the books that contain images and passages exactly with these sex acts…have been found in Iowa schools,” Boden says. Sixty House Republicans voted for the bill. Three Republicans and all Democrats in the House voted against it. Representative Elinor Levin, a Democrat from Iowa City, says she’s part of the first generation who started learning about sex from the internet.

“Our kids are going to ask questions,” Levin said. “Let’s ensure they have access to good models, as selected by educators, not just the uncurated internet world they have in their pockets.” Representative Sue Cahill, a Democrat from Marshalltown, is a licensed teacher librarian.  “I know the process that we as teacher librarians use to vet our books,” Cahill says. “Yes, there may be some passages that, taken out of context, may seem inappropriate.” Cahill says it’s the literary value of the book as a whole that puts it on the school library shelf. Boden says the bill provides new guardrails for school library books.

“Parents may still read the books of their choice to their own children,” she said. “We are simply setting age appropriate guidelines for K-12 settings, making sure that we protect our children.” Governor Kim Reynolds has a proposal of her own on school library book policies and the Senate has not yet debated the issue.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – The Washington Elementary School Playground Project in Atlantic, is moving forward, thanks to action taken during Wednesday evening’s meeting of the Atlantic School Board. A public hearing was first held on the proposed contract documents (Plans, specifications, and form of contract) and estimated cost for the playground improvements, during which there were no objections or comments.

The project consists of limited pavement demolition, removal and disposal of existing play equipment and tile surfacing, installation of new equipment, installation and repair of the concrete base, installation of new play surfacing, and site restoration. Snyder and Associates are the engineers for the project. Snyder’s Dave Sturm mentioned bids were received and opened Tuesday. The engineer’s estimated project cost was just under $700,000. Sturm said there were two bids. Both came in well under the estimate. The Board approved a bid from Caliber Concrete of Adair, for $579,442.

Construction will start in mid-July. The goal is to have it finished before the start of the 2023-24 school year.

In other news, the Atlantic School Board passed a Resolution to consider continued participation in the Instructional Support Levy (ISL), which expires June 30, 2024. A renewal of the Levy would allow it to continue until June 30, 2029. The Levy is used to help support classroom curriculum. The District will receive $748,572 from the ISL during the 2023 Fiscal Year.

A Public Hearing on the ISL renewal will be held March 29, 5:30-p.m. The School Board Wednesday, approved a 33-cent PPEL (Physical Plant and Equipment Levy), the funds for which are used for building repairs, vehicles and technology.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – The Atlantic School District received good news, Wednesday afternoon, with regard to a potential Welding Apprenticeship Program. Superintendent Steve Barber said they received an e-mail from the Department of Labor….

In December, Mr. Barber reported the District has an internal team that has worked extensively to get a registered apprenticeship in the area of welding.

The team tasked with bringing the program to AHS is planning to travel to Pella to learn more about their program.

The Welding Program would be the District’s first apprenticeship program. Once students complete the program, they will receive national credentials.

In other business, Mr. Barber said he’s learned also the new greenhouse should be ready to get growing soon.

In 2021, the Board approved the financial support of up to $100,000 to fund the construction of a new 30 x 48′ Greenhouse on a space south of the Ag room.

(Near Cumberland-Massena, Iowa) – Rescue crews in Cass County were dispatched to a three vehicle accident this morning. The collision occurred at around 8-a.m. near 76686 Richland Road. Dispatch reports indicated one-person had an arm injury. Cumberland and Massena Fire/Rescue were called to the scene. Additional details are not available,

(Radio Iowa) An Iowa company that plans to make boards out of the leftover stalks and leaves from corn known as stover, finally plans to open. Cornboard founder and C-E-O Lane Segestrom, says the original start up was delayed by the supply chain and other issues.

He says they will make pallets out of the corn-based boards.

Segestrom says it is great to finally see things move forward.

Segestrom talked about the plant’s start up Wednesday at a U-S-D-A forum on bio-based products.

(Radio Iowa) Governor Kim Reynolds has named an eastern Iowa native who’s been a leader in the national school choice movement to be the next director of the Iowa Department of Education.

Chad Aldis is a 1990 graduate of Clinton High School. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, he worked for Florida legislators, then as an administrator in the Florida Department of Education. Aldis then moved to Ohio and was executive director of School Choice Ohio for nearly four years. For the past nine-and-a-half years, he’s been with a national think tank that advocates for charter schools and the kind of state funded savings accounts for private school expenses that Iowa’s governor recently signed into law.

Governor Reynolds says this is a pivotal time for Iowa’s education system and Aldis will help lead reform efforts. Aldis says he shares the governor’s vision and will focus on ensuring all students leave high school with the knowledge and skills to prepare them for college or a career.

Aldis earned a degree in economics from the University of Mississippi and a law degree from Florida State University. Aldis is replacing Ann Lebo who announced recently she was resigning as Iowa Department of Education director after nearly three years in the position. His first day on the job is March 15th.

(Radio Iowa) After a nearly two and a half hour debate, the Iowa House has given final approval to a bill that would ban Iowa doctors and therapists from providing gender transition care to minors. All Senate Republicans voted for the bill Tuesday night and on Wednesday, 58 of the 64 Republicans in the House backed it. Republican Representative Steven Holt of Denison says there are grave doubts about having children undergo these life-altering procedures.

Holt says children are unable to give informed consent to these kind of procedures.

Representative Jeff Shipley of Fairfield, a Republican who voted for the bill, says the expectation should be health not harm.

Five Republicans and all House Democrats voted against the bill. Representative Ross Wilburn, a Democrat from Ames, told his colleagues he’s the father of a son who completed his gender transition at the age of 21.

Representative Chad Ingels of Randalia was one of the Republicans who voted against the bill says choosing to focus on one extremely small group in the state with this and other bills is not what the majority of Iowans want.

Representative Brian Lohse (LOH-see) of Bondurant, another Republican opponent of the bill, says parents should be free to make these decisions for their kids.

A similar law passed in Arkansas in 2021 was immediately challenged in court and has never taken effect as the case has not been resolved.

(Radio Iowa) – Volunteers are needed this weekend to help restore a state park that was heavily damaged in a tornado just over a year ago. One camper was killed when the powerful E-F-3 twister cut across southern Iowa’s Lucas County on March 5th of 2022, destroying much of the infrastructure and foliage at Red Haw State Park near Chariton. Park manager Riley Henry says the clean-up project involves picking up metal debris that was scattered across the 649-acre park.

Given the amount of damage, Henry says volunteers and D-N-R crews have already done an amazing job in making repairs and restoring the park’s many amenities, though the campground remains closed. Hundreds of trees were lost in the storm and about a thousand new trees have been planted in the past year. The volunteer event is Sunday from 2 to 4 P-M. Henry says to dress for the weather and bring work gloves, hiking boots and a water bottle.

(Radio Iowa) – The 38-hundred nurses and other healthcare professionals at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics have overwhelmingly approved a new contract. They are members of S-E-I-U Healthcare Minnesota & Iowa and had reached a tentative agreement the last week of February.

Information from S-E-I-U says the contract includes a six percent increase across the board for existing employees and three percent each year.