The Iowa Legislature is currently working on a proposal by Governor Reynolds in her “condition of the State” address at the beginning of the session regarding Iowa Area Education Agencies, or AEA’s. AEA’s currently provide special education services to students with disabilities among other services to districts, and the proposed bill would allow districts to contract private companies or make other changes to provide special education.

State Senator Julian Garrett tells KNIA News he is on the Senate Education Committee that met with the Governor, and the bill is currently going through multiple changes as it makes its way through the legislature. Garrett said he supports the spirit of the bill that would shift special education oversight to the Iowa Department of Education.

“It will give more control to the local schools, give them choices on how they want to proceed. They can go ahead and keep doing what they’ve been doing if they want, keep the same relationships with the AEA’s they can do that. Or they can contract with other agencies to do that sort of work.”

Garrett said what motivates him is since 2017, Iowa students with disabilities ranked 30 th or worse among the states, on 9 of 12 assessments and other lower scores.