DES MOINES, Iowa (WHO-TV) — Teachers in Iowa could soon be allowed to carry firearms in schools if a new bill introduced on Wednesday by House Republicans is passed.

HSB 675 would allow anyone to obtain a professional permit to carry weapons if they’re an employee of a school district, private school, or college that hasn’t opted out of the professional permitting of employees. In order to be issued a permit the employee must be eligible to carry a weapon, must complete one-time legal training, and must complete a firearm safety training course. Armed staff would also have to complete annual live scenario training and quarterly firearm training. School employees who are issued the permit would be entitled to qualified immunity from criminal or civil liability.

Last year the Cherokee School District and Spirit Lake School District passed policies that would allow certified school staff members to carry firearms. Both districts eventually ended the policies after struggling to find an insurance company that would provide a full policy with armed school staff.

The bill would also require school districts with an enrollment of at least 8,000 students to employ, and retain, at least one private school security officer or school resource officer at each building where students grades 9 through 12 attend. To support the employment and retention of the security officers, the Department of Education would be required to create a school security personnel fund that would match moneys provided by the school districts up to $50,000 a year.

The bill is scheduled to be discussed at a House subcommittee meeting at 12:30 p.m. on Monday.

(Des Moines, Iowa [KCCI]) – A proposal from Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds would consolidate the state’s 32 mental health and substance abuse regions into seven unified behavioral health districts. The bill advanced through an Iowa House subcommittee Thursday.  A bill to change how the State provides mental health services is advancing at the Iowa Statehouse. It’s one of Gov. Kim Reynolds’ top priorities this year. About 25% of adults who have a serious mental illness also struggle with substance abuse. Governor Reynolds’ bill would allow the two illnesses to be treated at the same time.

Her bill, HSB 653, would consolidate Iowa’s crisis resource programs and give the state more oversight. Currently, mental health resources are broken up across the state into 13 regions. Substance abuse disorder programs are broken up into 19 regions. Reynolds’ new bill would combine those two systems, consolidating the state’s 32 regions into seven new “behavioral health districts” statewide.

Each district would have a local advisory board. The state would implement performance measures, define district boundaries and decide what services each district would be required to provide. The new districts would be live and fully operational by July 2025. Behavioral health districts would not include disability services. The Department of Health and Human Services Aging and Disability Network would oversee those services instead.

The bill advanced through a House subcommittee Thursday. It’s now eligible for discussion by the full House Health and Human Services committee.

WOODBURY COUNTY, Iowa [KCCI]— Officers acted with legal justification when they shot and killed a northwest Iowa man last October, according to a report from the Iowa attorney general’s office. Officers were called to a scene in Woodbury County on Oct. 29, 2023, after reports of a shooting. Responding law enforcement engaged in a standoff with a suspect that lasted over five hours, according to the attorney general’s report.

The suspect, Walter Sulsberger, 44, of Hornick, admitted during the standoff to fatally shooting his father in the head, the report says. Sulsberger allegedly set fires on the property and slaughtered cattle while positioning himself on a hill with an illegally modified semi-automatic weapon. Armored law enforcement vehicles approached Sulsberger shortly before 3 a.m. on Oct. 30, leading to “a heated gun battle,” the report says.

Sulsberger died from multiple gunshot wounds. The attorney general’s office determined the shooting was legally justified.

(Radio Iowa) – Community college overall enrollment in Iowa was down slightly in 2023. Amy Geiske works in the Bureau of Community Colleges in the Department of Education. “This year we saw credit enrollment level off down just point-three percent from last year since peak recessionary enrollment in 2012 there’s been an average annual decline in enrollment about at about two-point-three percent (2.3%) that’s in line with national trends,” she says. But that enrollment decline appears to be slowing. “As we saw in the fall 23 enrollment, there’s just a slight uptick, so we hope to see that in next year’s annual report,” Geiske says.”

Credit Hours are holding steady with a point-zero-five decrease in student credit hours, so almost even. Credit hours totals a little over one-point-five million, with an average credit hours at 13-point-one per student.” The number of high school students taking community college classes continues to increase. “This past year over 52-thousand high school students enrolled in joint enrollment This is up from over 50-thousand in the previous year,, so a five-point-six percent (5.6%) increase in headcount joint enrollment,” she says. The high schooler’s taking those college classes have a major impact.

“In total, joint enrollment students comprise 45 percent of all headcount enrollment at our state’s community colleges this past year. That’s a record high,” Geiske says. “At two colleges, N-I-C-C and DMACC, joint enrollment students accounted for over 50 percent of their headcount enrollment. And we have six colleges where they were over 30 percent of total credit hours.” She says the success rate of students who graduated or transferred from a community college to another school was up three percent to nearly 53 percent.

(Radio Iowa) – Advocates of the Alzheimer’s Association from across Iowa will meet at the state capitol on Monday to ask state legislators to support two priorities that will improve early detection, diagnosis and care. Lauren Livingston, spokeswoman for the organization’s Iowa chapter, says they’ll urge lawmakers to strengthen Iowa’s Dementia Services Network by placing a dementia service specialist at each of Iowa’s six Area Agencies on Aging. “What these positions can do is really help families to navigate care planning, help them find local resources to help support them through their journey with dementia,” Livingston says. “They can even perform memory screenings and ultimately, help families keep their loved ones at home longer and reduce those costs of care for families and the state.”

Another key priority for the Alzheimer’s Association and other agencies like the American Cancer Society is to ensure Iowans have access to what’s called biomarker testing, which determines if someone is at greater risk for a given disease. “One example of that could be a PET scan, which is something that is used to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease, however, it’s very expensive and is not well covered by insurance,” Livingston says. “So what this bill would do is have insurance coverage of these biomarker tests to be able to diagnose people earlier, which would cut costs for the families and the state.” Iowans who are interested in dementia issues can be a part of the lobbying effort in Des Moines on Monday.

“You can visit alz.org/iowa and right at the top there is a link, you can click on to register,” Livingston says. “You can join us at the State Historical Building starting at 11 a.m. We’ll have lunch and training so you can get up to speed on what these bills are and how to talk with your legislators, and then we’ll walk up to the Capitol at 1 p.m. and meet with the legislators.”

Advocates will convene in the capitol rotunda and meet with their legislators from 1 to 4 p.m. on Monday. Alzheimer’s is the sixth-leading cause of death in the United States. In Iowa, more than 66,000 people have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s or dementia, and there are nearly 100,000 family and friends caring for their loved ones with the disease.

(Radio Iowa) – The wife of a Des Moines firefighter who died of cancer is urging legislators to change Iowa law. Emily Broderick’s 51-year-old husband Mike Broderick died of liver cancer in mid-January. “Unfortunately we learned through his diagnosis that only 14 cancers are covered right now for disability for the firefighters. You should say the word ‘cancer’ and it should be covered,” Broderick said. “They’re selfless servants. They run into the most dangerous of situations and how can we not give back to them?”

A memorial service for Mike Broderick was held late Thursday morning in West Des Moines. Afterwards, his wife and many of his fellow firefighters made their way to the Iowa Capitol to attend the House State Government Committee meeting. The panel unanimously passed a bill to make firefighters as well as police officers in Iowa’s municipal retirement system eligible for accidental disability and death benefits if they’re diagnosed with any form of cancer. Emily Broderick says the sooner this bill becomes law, the better.

“I do know the statistics. You’re 14 times more likely to get cancer as a firefighter,” she said. “They’re exposed to all these toxins. Their PPE has carcinogens in it.” Joe Van Haalen is president of Des Moines firefighters’ union. He says their gear contains PFAS — the so-called “forever chemicals” — to make it water repellent, plus they are being exposed to many other cancer-causing chemicals as they fight fires.  “Construction materials, the things that are inside of our houses,” Van Haalen says. “The things we encounter in house fires are just getting more and more dangerous.”

After the bill passed the House committee, firefighters lingered in Capitol hallways for handshakes and more conversions about Mike Broderick. Broderick met his wife Emily in high school in Cherokee, Iowa. He served 20 years in the U-S Army and joined the Des Moines Fire Department in 2007.