ROCK BRANCH, Iowa (AP) – Friends and students of a retired teacher have begun helping him recover from tornado damage at his home in northwest Iowa. Nine tornadoes struck northeast Nebraska and northwest Iowa on Friday, injuring at least 15 people.

The Sioux City Journal says that on Sunday, two buses carried about 50 students, staff members and parents from Hinton High School to the rural Rock Branch home of Wayne Stadler and his wife, Debbie. One of the twisters had ripped off the roof of their home and destroyed their barn and several sheds. The Stadlers weren’t injured.

Wayne Stadler had taught at the high school for 32 years. The damage was almost overwhelming, but the hard work by his friends and former students gave him a good start on the cleanup.

One person was arrested early this (Monday) morning after he crossed a barricade at a fire scene and refused to leave. Authorities say 29-year old Matthew Daniel Sloan, of Red Oak, was taken into custody at around 2-a.m. on a charge of interference with official acts. After he was transported to the Montgomery County Law Enforcement Center, Sloan was allegedly found to be in possession of a controlled substance. He was subsequently charged with introducing a controlled substance/marijuana, into a secure facility. Sloan was being held in the jail on $5,000 cash bond.

Firefighters from the Red Oak Fire Dept and surrounding communities are at a working structure fire in Red Oak this morning at 5th and Reed Streets, the site of the old Pit Stop Bar.

Photo courtesy Montgomery County EMA.

Montgomery County Emergency Management Director Brian Hamman reports the call came in at roughly 12:30am. Mutual aid was immediately requested from Stanton Fire, Elliott Fire & First Responders, Essex Fire & Rescue, and Shenandoah Fire and Clarinda Fire depts provided aerial support.

Crews are still operating at the fire scene and will be for several hours. Hamman asks residents to please avoid the area. The investigation is on going and the State Fire Marshals office has been notified.

Power is out in the area and Mid American Energy is working to restore those that were cut due to the fire.

Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press

One of the key components of the state education reform plan is moving closer to being implemented. Ryan Wise, the director of strategic initiatives at the Iowa Department of Education, says districts are in the planning phase of creating teacher leadership positions. The idea is to take the best teachers and use them as mentors for other teachers to raise the quality of education overall. Wise says a lot of the early discussion centered on how to define the roles of the experienced teachers who will lead others.

“I think there are certainly questions out there, and as a department we’re working hard to answer them and to really help facilitate conversations locally where they can answer the questions and develop a model of teacher leadership that works for them,” Wise says. There are some state requirements for the teacher leadership positions, including a minimum salary of 33-thousand-500 dollars, the district is required to “improve entry into the profession for all new teachers.” He says they also have to create multiple leadership roles, have a rigorous selection process for the leadership roles, and finally that they align their professional development plan to the new leadership positions.

The state has three-point-five million dollars to give to districts to help them in the planning process. Wise says the Education Department will send out an application to districts to apply to take part in the leadership program. He says they will also include a scoring system so district know how their application will be scored and they will have until January 31st of 2014 to submit their actual plan. The state will then phase in the leadership plans across the state.

“District serving one-third of the students in Iowa will come in each year — because that’s an important distinction because it may not equal exactly a third of the districts — but it’s a third of the students will come in in each of the first three years of the program,” Wise says. The legislature appropriated 50-million dollars for the implementation of the new plan.

(Radio Iowa)