Two Red Oak men were arrested Tuesday night on separate charges. According to Red Oak Police, 34-year old Kale Garrett Hardman was taken into custody a little after 8-p.m., for allegedly violating a protective order. Hardman was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on $300 bond.

At around 9:35-p.m. Tuesday, police in Red Oak arrested 26-year old Jason Rolfe Aherns, of Red Oak, on a Montgomery County warrant for Probation Violation. Aherns was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on $5,000 bond.

And, at around 5:30-a.m. today (Wednesday), Red Oak Police arrested 36-year old Kale Alan Wenberg, of Red Oak, on a charge of Driving While License Suspended. Wenberg was also cited for Operation a vehicle without registration and failure to provide security against liability (Insurance). He was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on $300 bond.

The Iowa House has passed a bill that would set “on or after August 23rd” as the time frame for starting the school year. Representative Greg Forristall is a Republican from Macedonia. “Since the first day of the session we have been working on the issue of the school start date,” Forristall said. “We’ve had discussions over the last couple of months with the senate, with members of the various house, with the governor’s office and I believe we have finally reached an acceptable compromise.”

Iowa schools do not know yet when school may be allowed to start this fall. In December, Governor Terry Branstad’s education department announced districts would no longer get waivers to start before the week in which Labor Day falls. Forristall says setting “on or after August 23rd” as the new rule for starting school is something the governor will accept.

“Sometimes you have to take what you can get,” Forristall said. “…This is one of those cases.” The bill passed on a 71 to 29 vote. Representative Scott Ourth, a Democrat from Ackworth, was among those who voted for the bill. “People say that politics is the art of the possible,” Ourth said. “And in the spirit of bipartisanship, which I think the people of Iowa expect of us, I find today to be a rather happy day.” Representative Art Staid, a Democrat from Cedar Rapids, opposed the bill, arguing local school officials should be making the start date decision.

‘Whatever happened to the local control principle?” Staid asked. “What ever happened to the limited government principle, where we do not harm?” Earlier this month, the Iowa Senate voted to allow school boards to continue to decide when classes start in the fall. Last fall, 67 Iowa school districts began classes during the second week of August. Bettendorf and Danville started earliest — on August 11th. Only 14 districts started after August 23rd last fall.

(Radio Iowa)

There was another meeting of key leaders late Tuesday afternoon, but still no end to the statehouse stalemate over state aid to public schools. A 10-member conference committee assembled weeks ago to try to break the impasse met, but both parties kept to their respective bargaining positions. House Speaker Kraig Paulsen of Hiawatha, the top Republican in the legislature, says Republicans are not going to budge from their proposal to boost general state aid to schools by about 100-million dollars.

“That is a very real commitment,” Paulsen says. “It’s a significant amount of money and we’re very concerned about going any higher.” Democrats, meanwhile, are sticking to their call to spend 100-million more than Republicans have offered. Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal of Council Bluffs, the top Democrat in the legislature, says the state commitment to education has declined in the past three decades.

“K-12, tuition grants, community colleges, Regents institutions, the Department of Ed — all of that taken together used to be 62 percent of the state budget,” Gronstal says. “It’s down to 55 percent and people wonder why some things are starting to lag in terms of student achievement.” By law, the decision on how much money the state’s public school districts will get for the school year that starts this fall was supposed to have been made more than a year ago. If legislators fail to reach an agreement this year, districts will get the same amount of money for the next school year as was received this year.

(Radio Iowa)