(Radio Iowa) – After several fender-benders involving Iowa school buses this week, including some with injuries, authorities are reminding drivers about the importance of using caution whenever they spot the slow-moving, yellow vehicles. Trooper Paul Gardner, a public resource officer with the Iowa State Patrol based in Fort Dodge, says many schools started classes this week and thousands of buses are navigating the state’s roads, carrying their cargo of kids.

“When they’re on the road and they see a school bus, please keep that in the back of their mind,” Gardner says. “That school bus may be coming up to a stop. When you see the yellow-amber lights flashing, that means the bus is preparing to stop, and once the red stop lights come on and the stop arm’s extended, it’s illegal to pass at that point.”

Motorists may get impatient and try to zip around the bus before it comes to a halt, but the patrolman says that could be both a life-threatening — and an expensive — mistake. “It’s illegal to pass a school bus when it’s stopped, red lights and stop arm are activated,” Gardner says. “So when a driver is caught in violation of that, they could face a minimum fine of $345 and a suspended driver’s license. It’s definitely a dangerous violation.”

State lawmakers adopted Kadyn’s Law in 2012 after the death of seven-year-old Kadyn Halverson of Kensett, who was fatally hit by a pickup in 2011 while trying to cross the road to board a school bus. The law raised criminal penalties for passing a stopped school bus.

(Radio Iowa) – President Biden’s move to provide student loan debt relief for Americans with an annual income below 125-thousand dollars is getting some strong reactions from Iowa politicians.

Republican Governor Kim Reynolds says Biden isn’t cancelling student debt, he’s shifting the costs to the taxpayer and to those who worked to pay off their loans. Deidre DeJear, the Democrat who’s running against Reynolds, says the president took a historic step that will begin to address income inequality and open pathways for financial wellness.

Republican Senator Chuck Grassley says he doesn’t think the president has the authority to make this move and Grassley says cancelling student debt discourages people from keeping their word that they’ll repay loans. Mike Franken is the Democrat who’s running against Grassley. Franken says the president’s plan is a welcome step, including the new sliding scale for repaying student loans that’s based on income, but Franken says there’s still a need for meaningful legislation to help lower the cost of attending college and trade schools.

About half a million Iowans have unpaid student loans. They still owe, in total, over 13 BILLION dollars as a group on their student loans. The average unpaid balance is nearly 30-thousand dollars.

Both major party candidates in Iowa’s second congressional district are critical of the president’s move to forgive some student loan debate. Republican Congresswoman Ashley Hinson of Marion says those who didn’t go to college or have paid off their loans shouldn’t be on the hook for someone else’s debt. Liz Mathis of Hiawatha, the Democrat who’s running against Hinson, says the president’s plan falls short in addressing the root problems of college affordability.

The major party candidates in Iowa’s first, third and fourth congressional districts have not issued statements on Biden’s decision. Senator Joni Ernst, a Republican, says the president’s plan is unfair to those who didn’t go to college or who have already paid off their student loans.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – Members of the Atlantic School Board, Wednesday evening, approved contract recommendations for a Middle School Paraeducator (Daniel Towne), a Preschool Bus Driver (Loretta Barringer), and a Substitute car/van driver (Gerald Luddington). They also approved an SBO (School Business Official) Sharing Agreement for the 2022-23 School Year, with the Adair-Casey School District.

Adair-Casey’s long-time SBO Theresa Elgin, is retiring at the end of September. Atlantic Community School District SBO/Board Secretary Sarah Sheeder was asked by A-C Superintendent Josh Rasmussen if she would be interested in filling the position on part-time basis, with 75-percent of her time dedicated to Atlantic and 25-percent to Adair-Casey. The 25-percent refers to Sheeder being on-hand for the A-C School Board meetings once per month to record the minutes of the meeting, and they will provide 25-percent of the cost for her services.

According to Atlantic Superintendent Steve Barber, Sarah “feels a personal obligation to trying to help them [A-C] as well as [being] committed to the quality of work she does here for us her in Atlantic.” Mr. Barber pointed out that “We tried sharing Sarah with [the] CAM [School District], it didn’t work out very well. I think the variables that exist within this sharing agreement versus CAM is significantly different, and its something that Sarah and I spoke about, and obviously she feels a commitment to her resident District as much as she is committed to our District.”

Next year, there will also be Operational Sharing of about five students, because when positions are shared, each position has a shared amount of students the District receives credit for, or approximately $36,000 the following year, in revenue for sharing with Adair-Casey. A-C would also receive the same credit. Currently the Atlantic CSD has an Operational Sharing Agreement with the Griswold CSD for Transportation Director. Sheeder said she and Superintendent Rasmussen know each other well, and what their expectations/goals are for her.

In other business, the Atlantic School Board approved a change order in the amount of $7,830 additional cost, for repairs to the sidewalk on the south side of High School. When the parking lot was removed for resurfacing, the contractor discovered the portions of the sidewalk was connected to the driveway. Since replace of the sidewalks was not an original part of the scope of the project, and there was no reason to believe it would have to be redone. Mr. Barber said “There’s a section along/next to the concession stand along the driveway, and there’s a couple of spots [in another area].” The damage was not part of a contractor error, according to Snyder and Associates…it was something that no one was aware of going into the project.

Following adjournment, the Atlantic School Board moved into a closed session for the annual evaluation of Superintendent Barber.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – Officials with SWIPCO (the Southwest Iowa Planning Council), which oper­ates Southwest Iowa Transit Agency (SWITA), have announced the launch of a new website focused on its public transit services. SWIPCO Executive Director John McCurdy says “Southwest Iowans are very used to seeing SWITA buses. The question is, do they know that SWITA’s public transit service is for everyone? With SWITA. com’s launch, we will be able to reach many more people who can utilize public trans­portation.”

McCurdy added that many in the region assume SWITA’s transit service is only available to the elderly or disabled, but he notes that is only part of the serivce. “All can ride, and we have many who ride SWITA to work and to school—you have somewhere to be, and SWITA takes you there.”

SWITA website homepage image

The new website includes information about each of the types of transit services SWITA operates, including student and medical transportation, taxi, and work routes. Riders can pay their bill and will even be able to request a ride through the website in the near future. Not to worry—the old-fashioned way of calling into the office still works, too.

McCurdy strongly encourages everyone to take a few minutes to check out the www.swita.com website, not only to see about the services that are available, but also to let us know of any issues that they may see. To quote McCurdy, “We’ve been looking at this thing for months, but the volume of information on the website is huge, so we are more than happy to get any feedback to improve the site.”

(Radio Iowa) – A play focused on racial injustice that’s based on a best-selling, Pulitzer Prize-winning book from 1960 is onstage in central Iowa this week. The Des Moines Civic Center is the first theater west of the Mississippi River to host the touring Broadway production of “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Actor Yaegel Welch says Harper Lee’s novel was required reading for generations of students and it’s still extremely relevant, even 60-plus years after it was first published.

“This book, at one point in time, seemed to be the symbol of awareness but now we can look back at it and see where the story might have had some flaws,” Welch says, “but it remains a historical lesson because at one point, it was the standard, and I think we need to see what the standard once was so we can now see how far we’ve come from that.”

Welch plays the role of Tom Robinson, a black man who is falsely accused of raping a white woman in Depression-era Alabama, and he says Lee was unafraid to tackle the strong themes of discrimination, prejudice and classism. “This book, what it touts most importantly is the lesson of empathy and I think it’s important to look back on that strength that was there even then,” Welch says.

Yaegel Welch as Tom Robinson. (Photo by Julieta Cervates)

“I think that’s what makes it necessary. If we can continue that sort of type of empathetic thinking, I think we can continue to grow as a society and as individual people just to be better and more concerned about each other.”

This stage version of Mockingbird was written by Aaron Sorkin, perhaps best known for creating TV’s “The West Wing.” Welch also played Robinson on Broadway and says the role has made him reflect upon the spectres of racism in the Deep South when the book was written versus the 2020 murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.

“It sheds light on the injustice in our legal system today and the unjust killing of citizens, and in this case, black citizens,” Welch says. “I think Aaron Sorkin honing in on that event makes it so current and things keep happening that just sort of highlight it and go, ‘Oh, wow, it’s still happening,’ so it’s not an encapsulated story. It’s current.” Welch says he recently visited the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, which made him consider why people would have risked their lives to stage sit-ins at lunch counters — or for the fictional Robinson to risk going on trial, knowing he’d likely be lynched even if he were found innocent.

“People do things out of boldness for the greater good of society,” Welch says. “They understand fully the consequences of what they’re embarking upon, but sometimes people can be in such a state of oppression, that they are willing to sacrifice their health and safety for the greater good and for the transformation of society.”

The 1962 movie version of the book featured actress Mary Badham as Scout, which won her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress when she was just 10 years old. Badham, now 69, is appearing in the Des Moines production as Scout’s hateful neighbor, Mrs. DuBose. The play runs at the Civic Center through Sunday.