(Radio Iowa) – One of Iowa’s community colleges is seeing a shakeup at the top. The Northeast Iowa Community College board of trustees has voted to terminate the contract of college President Herbert Reidel. The board took the action at its meeting Monday.

Reidel was placed on administrative leave October ninth. He began at NICC in July of 2022. The college named vice president for finance and administration David Dahms as acting president last month.

(Radio Iowa) – The University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics is getting a grant of two-and-a-quarter million dollars to help address child mental health issues. The grant will allow the Iowa Pediatric Mental Health Care Access Program to expand its services into schools. Dr. Tom Scholz, a U-I pediatric cardiologist, says they’re working with the U-I’s College of Education to reach kids for mental health support. “It allows them to perform better in school, interact better with their family and neighbors, and just allow them to have more success in the short term,” Scholz says, “which will certainly translate to more success in the long term.” The three-year grant is through federal and state Health and Human Services agencies.

Scholz says the money allows the program to broaden and reach more school districts in Iowa, especially in rural areas.  He says, “What this grant allows us is to connect into those communities, into those school systems, where the mental health services are quite limited.” Scholz says the program has been running for five years and, so far, has focused on workforce development and providing mental telehealth services to kids across the state.

(Radio Iowa) – Creighton University Economist Ernie Goss says the two surveys he conducts don’t show a lot of promise for merchants this holiday season.  “Holiday and Christmas buying probably up about three to four percent — and most of that’s inflation,” Goss says. “So when you look at it, when you subtract out inflation, you’re at zero to one percent increase from last year at this time.” Goss says high interest rates will impact holiday spending. “One of the problems with it is credit card balances are maxed out, we’ve got the highest balances there on record. And of course that individuals are paying 20 to 30 percent on balances that are carried forward,” he says. “So that’s a real issue. And we got a nation of creditor of high a lot of debt out there right now.” He says the high interest rates are also taking away more income with increased mortgage rates.

“Individuals now are spending as much as 40 percent of their income on housing. Now, that shouldn’t be 28 to 30 percent, well it’s now that 40 percent,” Goss says. “Of course, that just that just reduces your ability to go out there and spend for the Christmas and holiday buying.” Goss says he’s seeing people opting to get out of town instead of spending on gifts. “A lot of buying is going into things like air travel and travel, even automobile travel to locations for leisure and hospitality,” he says.

Goss says October retail sales were not that good and were also down for September. He says some of that September buying was for seasonal purchases, so it’s going to be interesting to see what happens with Black Friday and the rest of the holiday season.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – Police in Red Oak, Monday evening, arrested a man wanted on a warrant out of Shelby County. Authorities report 31-year-old Drew Ashton Gagnon, of Red Oak, was taken into custody at around 5:30-p.m., in the 300 block of Nuckols Street, on the warrant for Probation Violation. The offense was connected to an original charge of OWI/1st offense. Gagnon was being held in the Montgomery County Jail, while awaiting extradition to Shelby County.

(Radio Iowa) – Governor Kim Reynolds says it’s time to bolster literacy programs in the early grades in Iowa schools. Reynolds has indicated raising teacher salaries would likely be a priority as well.

“We’re going to continue to invest in education. It’s really important. We’re going to continue to invest in our teachers. We’re going to continue to invest in kids with special needs,” Reynolds says. We’re not where we need to be.” The annual Iowa Statewide Assessment of Student Progress last spring shows students from low income households had English proficiency scores that were about 15 points below the overall average, while students learning to speak and read English scored even lower.

“They deserve better and so we’re going to make sure that teachers have the tools that they need, that we’re really focused on early literacy, ESL, and again students with special needs,” Reynolds says. “We can do better. We will do better and we just need to make sure that we’re providing consistency and the rigor that’s important that will help us get the results that we need.”

Last spring’s test scores showed gains in the subject areas of math and science, but students with disabilities, English language learners and students from low income households scored significantly lower than the statewide average.