PACIFIC JUNCTION, Iowa (AP) – A 22-year-old southwest Iowa man has pleaded not guilty to killing his girlfriend’s 13-month-old daughter.   Online court records say Colby Puckett, of Pacific Junction, has been charged with first-degree murder. He’s accused of fatally injuring Aliyanna May in February while he was baby-sitting the little girl and two of her siblings.

The Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation says the girl suffered extensive injuries to her head and eyes. She was found unresponsive Feb. 1 and died at a hospital in Omaha, Neb., the next day.  Puckett is being held at the Mills County Jail. His trial is scheduled to begin on April 23.

GLENWOOD, Iowa (AP) – The high school principal for the Glenwood Community School District has made a deal with administrators and resigned her post. Television station KETV says Kerry Newman’s resignation was accepted by the Glenwood school board, Monday night.

Newman had been on leave since Jan. 18th from her job at Glenwood Community High School. The board had cited four reasons for seeking her ouster: an inappropriate relationship with a district employee, poor judgment, inappropriate use of resources and being an ineffective role model. Newman had said the allegations are false.

As part of the deal, the district will pay Newman $40,000 and give her access to some of her work while she was principal. Newman and the district agree not to disparage each other.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) – Officials are planning to temporarily boost how much water flows into the lower Missouri River to test the concrete spillway below the Gavins Point dam on the South Dakota-Nebraska border.  The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is planning the test on today (Tuesday). Residents downstream of the dam will likely notice a surge in water levels for a couple days afterward.

The amount of water flowing into the river will increase from the current 14,000 cubic feet per second to as much as 40,000 cubic feet per second for short periods of time.  That will send river levels more than 4 feet higher in Yankton, S.D., on Tuesday. Smaller increases are expected later as the water moves downstream. For example, the river will likely rise 2.6 feet at Omaha on Friday.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The Iowa House has approved legislation that would require children enrolled in the state’s voluntary preschool program to attend regularly. Lawmakers approved the bill Monday, which would make 4-year-olds in the program subject to compulsory attendance rules. The bill would not lower the mandatory attendance age, and parents could choose to withdraw their children from the classes. Supporters say the bill ensures children enrolled in the preschool classes are taking advantage of the opportunity.

Iowa’s preschool program was established in 2007 under former Gov. Chet Culver. More than 20,000 kids were enrolled in the program in the 2011-2012 school year, and 320 districts received program funding. The bill now moves to the state Senate for review.

A facility which is designed to provide Kindergarten through 8^th grade students in the Atlantic Community School District with serious psychiatric conditions a safe and therapeutic environment for evaluation and treatment outside of a regular classroom setting, became a victim of the budget cutting axe Monday. Despite a public hearing on budget, during which several people made impassioned pleas to save the hospital school and make cuts elsewhere, the Board of Education voted unanimously in favor of approving the budget without funding for the Link Center Hospital School for FY 2013-14 at the Cass County Memorial Hospital. The school was created in the mid-1990’s.

None of the board members wanted to cut the funding umbilical cord from the hospital school, but they also didn’t want to risk losing the district’s spending authority by losing a similar amount in what  it would pay to keep the school open, which Superintendent Mike Amstein said in February, would be about $375,000. He said the district cannot continue to lose its spending authority, which has steadily been on the decline for the past five-years, and continue to pay for the school out of the General Fund. Amstein said also, they would have to increase the property tax levy 50-cents above the 10-cent increase already planned for the next fiscal year, based on zero-percent allowable growth, which equates to $14.51 per thousand dollars taxable valuation. The current levy is $14.41. Amstein said the students will continue to be served by the district’s Level 3, or Behavioral Health, program.

He said for those students who the district cannot effectively serve under a Level 3 program, it will look at other day treatment program – if space is available. The bottom line, according to Amstein, is that the district is required to provide a Level 3 program, and they intend to do so. He acknowledged however, that it will provide the same type and quality of service currently provided by the Hospital School, but it “Will look very similar to a Level 3 program,” found in Marshalltown, Des Moines, and elsewhere. Amstein was asked by Board member Rod Hartwig, if there are any other ways the program could be saved, either by grants, and cuts elsewhere, but Amstein said the revenue sources just aren’t there.

Amstein said there is no easy solution to saving the school while at the same time keeping the district in “Solid fiscal shape.” He said the if the board continues to fund the program at current levels, district officials may be called in front of the Iowa Department of Education’s School Budget Review Committee to have a plan developed to address the district’s spending authority issue, which is something he doesn’t want to see happen.

Amstein says if the district loses its spending authority, even if it has the cash, it can’t touch it. He said his decision to recommend cutting funds for the Hospital School was not an easy one, but he and Business Manager/Board Secretary Mary Beth Fast had turned over “every stone” to try and find ways other ways, but were unable to do so, even after talking with an expert in school financing.