(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa Senate Education Committee has approved a bill that would change Iowa’s limitation on when public and private schools can start in the fall. Current law says August 23rd is the earliest schools may start. It was set a decade ago at the urging of then-Governor Terry Branstad. to ensure the Iowa State Fair was over before schools started up. The bill would let schools start no earlier than the second to last Monday in August. Senator Tom Shipley, a Republican from Nodaway, says that means schools could start as early as August 18th in some years.

“I get a lot of comments that having a set start date for everybody, ‘Why did you do that?’ Well, it sounded good idea at the time,” Shipley says, “but we wanted to avoid around the State Fair.” Shipley says the bill would give schools a little more flexibility. “As a former school board member, this is what I like: it’s our call when we’re going to start — within reason,” Shipley said. “I think we’ve accomplished that within this bill.” Under Iowa’s current school start limitation, nearly all Iowa schools started this past year on Friday, August 23rd.

Senator Tom Shipley

Senator Sarah Trone-Garriott, a Democrat, is from Waukee, where the first day of this school year was on that Friday. “Any time we can fix an issue that the legislature created by giving flexibility to these local decision makers to make their own decisions that suit their communities, I’m in favor,” she said. The bill to let schools start as early as August 18th in some years is opposed by the Adventureland Amusement Park and Iowa Travel Industry Partners, an organization that represents restaurants, hotels and tourism spots around the state.

The Iowa State Fair’s lobbyist is monitoring the bill’s progress, but hasn’t registered in opposition to moving up the school start date. Before the mandatory school start date was set in 2015, 96 percent of Iowa school districts started BEFORE August 23rd.