AMES, Iowa —Iowa State University said it will suspend crew club activities for at least the 2021-2022 school year following two reviews of a fatal boating accident that killed two club members at Little Wall Lake. ISU crew club members Derek Nanni and Yaakov Ben-David died March 28 in the boating accident. KCCI reports separate reviews of the incident by the U.S. Council for Athletes Health and a committee of university personnel found the school’s implementation of health and safety policies for the club to be “deficient.”

The reviews found that the crew club experienced inadequate levels of health and safety oversight, training and support and that there was an “incomplete analysis of the relative risks and necessary safety considerations” for the club. Both reviews found that the university failed to establish effective oversight for the crew club, resulting in inadequate safety, but stated that club leadership and recreation services at the school failed to address known safety concerns.

Initial findings from both reviews listed health and safety standards that were not applied on March 28, including ignoring high wind speeds prior to activity, failing to respond to worsening weather, failing to deploy a safety launch boat and failure to provide proper safety and communication devices.

The reviews also found that two crew club members lacked the on-water experience necessary to practice in high wind and worsening weather. An email sent by the crew club to the university’s recreation services in February 2020 listed multiple safety concerns within the club, including the club’s lack of a launch boat. ISU told KCCI in April that the club struggled to obtain a launch boat due to fundraising issues.

The university listed several immediate actions it will take following the reviews, including the suspension of crew club activities until at least 2022. The school said it will conduct risk reviews of each of its sport clubs, implement policy revisions and analyze recommendations made by each review of the March 28 incident.

(Radio Iowa) – Police say a long-running fight over a lawn tractor led to the shooting death of a Des Moines woman. On Sunday night, a 9-1-1 caller expressed concern about a woman and police found 42-year-old Amber Burton of Des Moines dead of what was originally thought to be a stab wound.

An autopsy determined she died of a gunshot wound. Fifty-year-old Des Moines resident Nery Arnoldo Lopez Morales has been charged with the woman’s murder. Police say Morales and Burton had an ongoing dispute about the ownership of a lawn tractor and witnesses and surveillance video connected him to her death.

(Radio Iowa) – An Iowa Senate committee has dismissed complaints against Republican senators who voted to ban schools from requiring masks. Six Iowans accused G-O-P senators of violating Senate ethics rules by backing a ban that could put medically vulnerable students, staff and families at greater risk of getting Covid. Senate Republicans, in a written response, said voting for a bill isn’t an ethics violation.

Senator Pam Jochum, a Democrat from Dubuque who voted against the bill, says she’s sympathetic to the concerns of parents — but Jochum says the Senate Ethics Committee isn’t the proper forum to resolve the issue. “Unfortunately I believe the remedy really is in a court of law,” Jochum says.

On Monday, a judge issued a temporary order that lets school districts require face masks be worn on school grounds until the lawsuit challenging Iowa’s ban on mask mandates is decided.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa State Education Association president Mike Beranek says it is a welcome relief to have a federal judge issue an order that blocks Iowa’s ban on mask mandates in schools.  “The number is increasing of our students that are contracting the virus,” Beranek says, “and one of the best protocols that we could be utilizing here in the state is to be wearing masks.”

Beranek spoke during an online news conference shortly before a federal judge issued a temporary injunction barring enforcement of the law that has prevented schools from requiring people wear face coverings on school grounds. According to Beranek, more than 80 percent of school districts required students and staff to wear masks last year. Beranek says with the more contagious delta variant of Covid now circulating, the number of students testing positive for the virus is increasing.

“The number of students below 12 years of age that are contracting the virus is a concern since they do not have the ability to have a vaccine yet,” Beranek says. Beranek says the people in the best position to decide what is right for the health and safety of a school community are the people in that school district.

Governor Kim Reynolds signed the statewide ban on school mask mandates in May and she says the state will appeal the federal judge’s ruling. Reynolds says parents should decide whether their own children wear masks at school. House Speaker Pat Grassley, a Republican from New Hartford, says the law took the necessary step to return decision-maker power to parents and the judge’s order strips parents of those freedoms.

(Radio Iowa) – The state’s largest school district is the first to reinstate a requirement that students, staff and visitors wear face coverings. On Monday, a federal judge issued a temporary order that blocks enforcement of the Iowa law that bans mask mandates in schools. Early Monday evening, Des Moines Superintendent Thomas Ahart said he’s heard concerns from families in the district and school staff about the ban and the judge’s ruling was welcome news. The mask mandate will go into effect in the Des Moines district Wednesday.

The school board in Iowa City was set to meet tonight (Tuesday), to consider issuing a similar requirement.