ORANGE CITY, Iowa (AP) — A trial has been scheduled for an Iowa religious activist who’s accused of burning four LGBTQ children’s books he’d checked out of a local library. Sioux County District Court records show that 62-year-old Paul Dorr has pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor criminal mischief. His nonjury trial is set to begin March 26. Dorr released a nearly 30-minute video on Facebook Live in which he denounced the Orange City library for having the LGBTQ books and threw them into a burning barrel. The video was made Oct. 19, the first day of the city’s gay pride festival.

Dorr had said he would not pay to replace the books, but hundreds of dollars’ worth of donations poured into the library in the aftermath of the video.

The Atlantic School District’s Board of Education is set to meet this (Wednesday) evening at 5:30, in the High School Media Center. On the agenda for their Work Session, is discussion with regard to:

• The Character Committee
• A Facility Planning Update
• Negotiations – Meeting Dates for Initial Offers.

The Board will also receive updates on:

• Public Meetings with regard to Facility Planning: 1) Jan. 30th, 6-p.m., and 2) Feb. 6th at 6-p.m.  Both Public Meetings will be held in the High School Auditorium.
• Regular Board meeting – will take place Feb. 13th at 5:30-p.m. (High School Media Center)

SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) — Two people who worked for a Sioux City hotel have been accused of a scam using guests’ credit cards. Woodbury County court records say 35-year-old Sandra Lalumendre and 19-year-old Ethan Ehlers have been charged with theft and other crimes.  The records show Ehlers has pleaded not guilty. His trial is scheduled to begin March. 5.

Court documents say that from May 14 through Sept. 8, Lalumendre and Ehlers fraudulently overcharged guests’ credit cards at the Howard Johnson hotel in downtown Sioux City. They’d then force refunds and split the money. The documents say the total was more than $32,700.

(Radio Iowa) — The enrollment in the state’s 15 community colleges dropped slightly in 2018. Heather Doe of the Iowa Department of Education says the drop of around 15-hundred students mirrors what happened nationwide. Doe says it is due in part to a better economy. “That’s been a trend that’s really happened since we peaked back around 2012 –right when there was a great recession going on,” Doe says. “Since we’ve been in recovery, we’ve seen those types of numbers both in Iowa and across the nation.”

Doe says at the peak when the unemployment level was higher, more people were looking to get a degree or learn new skills at community colleges. Doe says one area that saw an increase last year is the program that let’s high school students take courses before they graduate. “We reached a peak of just over 51-thousand high school students taking advantage of joint enrollment opportunities this year,” according to Doe. “That’s up about two-point-three percent from last year.” She says the increase is due in part to efforts to provide more access to the community college classes. Doe says they’ve been working on a statewide career and technical education redesign that has provided a lot of opportunities for student — particularly in rural areas — to go to regional centers and get access to community college courses they hadn’t had in the past. The average age of credit students was 21-point-six with 80 percent of students under 25 years of age. Females made up 54-point-three percent of total community college credit enrollment. Minority enrollment increased to a record high of 22-point four percent.

The Education Department’s Division Administrator for Community Colleges, Jeremy Varner, says the programs that provide degrees are not the only thing offered by the schools. “You know hundreds of thousands of Iowans enroll in non-credit offerings each year. And there are a variety of other services that community colleges provide within their communities each year,” Varner says. “So Iowa is fortunate to have a very mature and robust community college system.”

The annual report on community colleges in the state was recently presented to the Iowa Board of Education. You can see the full report on the Department of Education’s website.

(Radio Iowa) — Six Iowa schools in “high-poverty” districts will each get 50-thousand dollar state grants this summer for programs to boost the computer skills of elementary students. The application period for these “Computer Science Is Elementary” grants opened yesterday (Tuesday). Governor Kim Reynolds says the I-T professionals of tomorrow are sitting in classrooms across the state today, so it’s critical kids learn computer science in the early grades. “We want all of our students to have the opportunities and we want them to start as soon as they can because we know that’s critical for how they adapt later on,” Reynolds says.

Gary Scholten is the executive vice president and chief digital and information officer for Prinicpal Financial. Scholten says there’s already a shortage of workers with I-T skills and it’s projected to get worse in the coming years. “One of the unfortunate facts is most of the positions right now in technology are filled by males who are either of European ancestry or Asian ancestry and so we need to get more young women pursuing jobs in technology and so this will help with that, also those with Latino and African American backgrounds as well,” Scholten says, “and so by hitting high-poverty schools, there’s a better chance of doing that.”

Scholten was in charge of raising money from Iowa businesses to finance the six grants. A seventh grant — also worth 50-thousand dollars — will be given to the Loess Hills Computer Programming School in Sioux City. Educators there will serve as consultants and the Loess Hills computer science curriculum will be used as a prototype for other schools. Reynolds visited the Sioux City program a couple of years ago. “I’m telling you, this was a game-changer. I could not believe what I witnessed there,” Reynolds said. “These students were so engaged in what they were doing there and they have kind of a transient population, kids moving in and out, and I can remember the teachers saying how this really helped those kids get up to speed by having the technology and infusing that in all the other disciplines.”

The six OTHER “Computer Science Is Elementary” grants will be awarded on a regional basis. Any Iowa school with at least 40 percent of its students qualified for the government’s free or reduced price lunch program is eligible to apply for the 50-thousand dollar award.