(Radio Iowa) – Iowa-based Casey’s General Stores — the country’s 4th largest pizza chain — is asking the Iowa legislature to let 16 and 17 year olds man the machines that roll out the pizza dough. “Casey’s, like any other employer across the state of Iowa, we’re really struggling in finding employees.” That’s Tom Cope, a lobbyist for Casey’s. He says unlike surrounding states like Illinois and Missouri, current Iowa law bars anyone under the age of 18 from operating a pizza dough rolling machine.

“We make the dough fresh every day at the store. It’s not a froze dough,” Cope says. “And so the way it works is we have a ball of dough and (for) each pizza that’s order, that dough has to go through a rolling machine before it then can be made into a pizza.” A Senate subcommittee has approved the bill that adopts federal guidelines, so 16 and 17 year olds would be able to operate pizza dough machines in Iowa.

Senator Todd Taylor, a Democrat from Cedar Rapids, says as long as minors aren’t allowed to do maintenance on the machines, which could be dangerous, he’ll support the move. “I think that’s all we need to do and it’s a win-win, you know, kids make pizza all over this state,” Taylor says, “but we want them to be safe.” Peter Hird, a lobbyist for the Iowa Federation of Labor, says unions aren’t opposing the attempt to add older teenagers to Casey’s pizza-making enterprise, but Hird questions whether increasing child labor is the best way to address Iowa’s workforce shortage.

“We do really worry about bringing more kids into the workforce,” he says. “Are we protecting them during these years, too?” He cites last year’s vote in the legislature to let 16 and 17 year olds operate the rides at Iowa amusement parks as well as legislation proposed this year that would no longer require adult supervision of older teens working in child care facilities.

(Radio Iowa) – State Auditor Rob Sand says he found no significant concerns about the state’s Covid-19 data reporting during the first 14 months of the pandemic. Sand says issues with the Iowa Department of Public Health’s online Covid dashboard that drew public complaints were out of the state’s control.

“The late entries that a lot of people were talking about and suspicious about early in the pandemic were not because the state was messing anything up,” Sand says. “It was because the private labs that were doing the testing were regularly submitting results very late to the state of Iowa.” Sand says state officials calculated Covid positivity rates correctly, but could have more clearly explained what formula they were using.

Kelly Garcia, the interim director of the Iowa Department of Public Health, says the report highlights the need to upgrade the agency’s outdated I-T and data systems before the next emergency.

(By Natalie Kreb, Iowa Public Radio)

(Radio Iowa) – The chairman of the House Education Committee has come up with a plan that would let college graduates with three years of work experience get a teaching license within a year. Republican Representative Dustin Hite of New Sharon said Iowa school administrators tell him they’re having a hard time hiring teachers. “Making sure that we have quality, qualified teachers for years to come is just important to all Iowans,” Hite said during a news conference on the House floor. “It’s certainly important to people like me who have kids in school.”

These alternative licenses would be for potential teachers in 7th through 12th grade courses and Hite’s proposal would require applicants to complete an internship in a classroom and 15 additional hours of college credit. That’s faster than the current pathway for college grads seeking a license to teach in Iowa. Hite said he’s hoping his plan will appeal to people with life experience in key occupations who are looking for a second career.

Rep. Dustin Hite. (RI photo)

“They’re saying, you know: ‘I’m done with that job. I’m done with the rat race…but I’d love to give back to my community through becoming a teacher,’” Hite said. Hite expects his idea would find new teachers for urban and rural schools. “There’s people who have a range of different jobs,” Hite said. “Down where I live we have a lot of different industries. We have Cargill, so we have chemists who work there. We’ve got Vermeer and Musco, so we have engineers who work there, so I think you actually will find a lot of those people throughout the state.”

Hite expects his plan will be considered in the House Education Committee later this week or early next week. A copy of the bill is not yet available on the legislature’s website.

(Radio Iowa) – Parts of western Iowa are facing an acute shortage of emergency youth shelters for children in foster care. In the last year, three of the region’s four shelters closed due to staffing shortages caused by COVID-19. The Crittenton Shelter in Sioux City just reopened after being shut down for more than six months and its executive director Kim Scorza  says it was a tough time.

“It’s a huge gap because it means that kids are not going to receive the care that they need to (have) in a timely manner,” Scorza says. “It may mean that some kids get bounced to multiple facilities.” Within the first week of opening, the shelter was already housing six children. The pandemic is also creating a critical need for more foster families to take in children. Dawn Leutje, of Lutheran Iowa Services, says the number of children in foster care has continued to climb, but the number of homes available didn’t keep pace.

Leutje asks, “But if there’s a shortage of foster homes, and there isn’t an available family in that area, and there’s not a shelter available, then where are the children going to go?” There are 342 foster families in the 30 counties across western Iowa, but Leutje says that number isn’t filling the high number of referrals. She says many people became unable to host kids amid the uncertainty of the pandemic.

(by Kendall Crawford, Iowa Public Radio)