(Radio Iowa) – The first day of school in most Iowa districts is just three weeks away — and the Iowa Department of Education has recently issued guidelines outlining how Iowa educators may discipline students who are disruptive or violent. Iowa schools must have written policies outlining when students can be kicked out of a classroom and under what circumstances they may return. The teacher and their principal must have a meeting about each student’s removal — and a teacher may refuse to let the student back into their classroom.
Representative Skyler Wheeler of Hull, chairman of the Education Committee in the Iowa House, worked on the legislation.
Senator Lynn Evans is a retired superintendent from Aurelia.
This spring, there were nearly two-hundred job openings in special education classrooms in Iowa and that ballooned to over six-hundred late last week. Senator Molly Donahue of Marion works part-time as a special education teacher at Cedar Rapids Kennedy High School.
The new law ensures teachers get at least three days of paid leave if they’re physically injured by a student. It also makes it mandatory for teachers to read updates to the Individual Education Plans developed for any student they’re teaching.
