Members of the Exira and Elk Horn-Kimballton Community School District’s Boards of Education met Monday night in Exira for a joint Board meeting on the topic of reorganization. Exira-EHK Superintendent Dean Schnoes said no action could be taken due to the lack of a quorum from the EHK Board. Schnoes said the meeting essentially turned into a work session, which featured Area Education Agency (AEA) representatives Paula Vincent and Lane Plugge.

Schnoes said a few members of the community showed up to listen and ask questions about reorganization and consolidation of the two school districts. He says the Q-and-A and discussion process won’t stop with the most recent meeting. Schnoes said they will continue to hold community meetings every time there is new information that’s made available. Information will also be available on the district’s website and their related FaceBook page.

Once the final petition is put together and approved, the matter could be put to a vote of members in both school districts, by early April 2013. He says if other issues crop up, the vote might end-up being pushed back until June of next year, but he hopes that doesn’t happen.

JOHNSTON, Iowa (AP) – A committee has decided to recommend Iowa provide education services for blind and deaf students at existing campuses in Vinton and Council Bluffs and three new sites in a regional system. The proposal will be forwarded to the Iowa Board of Regents. A board vote isn’t expected until February.

The proposal will cost $3.2 million more than current spending to serve the deaf and blind students. But School for the Deaf Superintendent Patrick Clancy says the extra cost would be shared by various entities, including local school districts.  The regents charged the committee to review the effectiveness and efficiency of the services.

The state serves about 500 students who are blind or visually impaired. It serves about 1,500 students who are deaf or hard of hearing.

A request to expand educational opportunities in the Walnut School District by establishing a Charter School was rejected during a meeting Monday night, of the Walnut School Board. The Board voted 4-to 1 against the proposal after a lengthy period of discussion during their regular meeting.

A local group comprised of parents, a school district member and a community member, had asked the School Board to consider the proposal for a K-through 12 Charter School as an option for their students. During Monday night’s meeting, information was brought up about students having researched and debated the matter. Their conclusions raised concerns, and, it was pointed out efforts to establish a Charter School in Des Moines had failed.

The Walnut School District has experienced a decline in enrollment, to the point where there are just over 100-students. The school currently has a sharing agreement with A-H-S-T.

Governor Terry Branstad says today’s (Tuesday’s) “bullying prevention summit” may yield ideas for new policies at the state level. “You know, a survey of students shows that about 50 percent of the students have been bullied in the past year,” Branstad says. “So this is a significant problem and it’s a serious effort to address it.” But Branstad cautions it’s going to take more than policy pronouncements from officials.

“We know that it’s going to take the involvement of school leaders and parents and communities,” Branstad says. “We are all in this together and we all have to work together and I’m hopeful that we can come up with some good strategies that will work for parents, that will work for school districts, that will work for communities.”

A child bullied on a Sioux City school bus was featured in a national documentary called “Bully” that called attention to the prevalence of bullying and the superintendent of Sioux City schools will speak at today’s conference. This past April, a northwest Iowa teenager who openly admitted to being gay killed himself. His family says he was being bullied on-line and at school with gay slurs. In August, Governor Branstad announced a statewide bullying prevention summit would be held because in his words “it is time to do more to stand up to bullying.” Registration is closed for the summit. Over a thousand people signed up to attend.

(Radio Iowa)