Meeting Public Comments

Courtney Collier

This bill is needed because schools are not transparent in disclosing the materials used for teaching our children today. With the teaching and learning being shifted to electronic devices via digital platforms, we have lost access to what our children are learning. Our district uses an app called Canvas to post students daily lessons. Parents can see them via the parent view of the app. However, most of the courses for my sons are either blank or the information posted is incomplete, or it says denied access. Then if/when I request additional details from the teachers it is like pulling teeth to get them to send the actual materials/resources they give//show our students. Its unacceptable that we cant see or know what is being used to teach our children. Its unacceptable for example that I had to ask 4 times to see the materials used for my sons class. How can we be involved in our childrens education and what they are learning under these circumstances? I believe we as a state need to go back to teaching and learning from text books that are carefully curated by the state DOE to restore trust between parents and school. Currently it is a free for all, where teachers are allowed to use any material or resource they want to pull off of the internet including YouTube videos.

Kelly Smith

Please advance this bill. Parents should have access to what is being taught in the classroom.

Evelyn Nikkel [PELLA PAC]

YES!! Schools must keep parents informed of what is being taught and what is being indoctrinated. We all woke up during COVID 19 when it became apparent how the schools were manipulating our children and not "just" educating. We found out within the last two years that our schools were putting pornographic, obscene, violent and LGBTQ promoting materials in their libraries. Thank God our legislature stopped that. Now, pass this and make them accountable for what they are required to teach our children. It's obvious their accountability must be forced on them.

Sarah Reid

I support this bill. With schools moving away from physical textbooks, it's increasingly difficult for parents to know what their kids are learning.We consistently hear from educators that parents need to be more involved in their children's education this is a great step in that direction.This bill should make everyone happy parents who want to know what their children are learning and teachers who emphasize the importance of involved parents.

Amy Dea

I support this bill. It is very important that parents are involved in their child's education. Making all of the material available on line that the student is using is a great idea. This also allows all of the stakeholders access to this information as well. Please vote in favor of this bill.

Kate McGovern

I support this bill. Our children attend a Des Moines public school, and we have experienced little to no transparency regarding what our kids are being taught or how well they are learning. Students are not told or taught to share paperwork assignments with their parents. We've requested this from the teachers several times to no avail. We recently had a talk with our 5th grader and told her to bring all her recently available assignments home, whether they had been evaluated yet or not, so we could see what she has been working on. She had to go through the turnin bin on the teacher's desk and remove her work that hadn't been evaluated in the past 23 weeks. One assignment caught me by surprise. It had to do with a book they are reading titled "Hoot," specifically chapters 3 and 4, which seemed to support antijustice, excuses for bullying, and encouraging the student to contemplate revenge. I've attached a copy of the completed assignment "Journal Activity" that our child reclaimed from the bin. Had this assignment been brought to our attention before it was given to our child, I would have requested something different. In 4th and 5th grade, no assignments or evaluated work of any kind was sent home for the purpose of transparency. We have not seen any weekly assignments or evaluations on weekly work, quizzes, tests, or projects. The only time we were made aware of our child's progress was at teacher conferences, and only the overall "cut point" was discussed in relation to our child's score. We had no idea what any of that meant except the word "proficient," and even that wasn't explained to us very well. Many of the individual learning objectives were glossed over and not even scored by the teacher. We have recently come to find out that our child has some gaps in math knowledge with a few of those "individual learning objectives" that go back all the way to 2nd grade. Similarly, her sister, who is currently in 2nd grade, has knowledge gaps in reading that go back to the beginning of 1st grade...a year and a half ago. Since there is no accountability for transparency, neither we nor the teachers were able to recognize that until "proficient" turned to "at risk," and we paid out of pocket to have our children evaluated by an educational diagnostician to show us exactly where they needed help. How does a child get passed over for 3 years and counting before anyone notices that they need help with learning or missed a key component of subject matter along the way? Lack of transparency and poor grading practices that's how. Better question: at what point is that too deep a knowledge deficit for the school's resources to remediate? We need to bring back graded assignments, parents need to see weekly assignment scores, individual learning objectives that match those on the FAST/MAPS/ISACS texts need to be spelled out clearly on each assignment, and teachers need to be held accountable for grading and filing out each and every field in the infinite campus portal for parents to see all the grades over all the trimesters for the history of the student's time at that school. We need to see yearoveryear comparisons so we can see the trends and nip any issues in the bud... because the schools aren't. And if this all sounds too tedious for teachers to accomplish, then let's go back to weekly assignments being sent home, homework getting graded and counting for something, and grading like it used to be 30 years ago when Iowa was ranked at the top 5 among states for education. Let's go back to what worked the best.

Mary Jobst

Please advance this bill that promotes transparency of educational materials used in public schools.

Shellie Flockhart [Parent]

Hello. Thank you for bringing this bill forward. When my sophomore son entered English 2, we received emails providing some of the books used for reading. As the class progressed, there were articles, movies, uTube videos, song lyrics, poems, and other materials added to build on an underlying onesided, divisive belief system also being used. When i asked the district, they stated that only the books are approved curriculum. Yet, later i found that other English 2 teachers were using all the same extra materials. When asking the district to review this, i was told they could only review the books. I was never given what pages out of books were used, what the actual assignments were, nor was i ever able to go in and speak with the teacher. The district is still arguing that anything other than the main books is not considered material. Please bring this forward. Transparency is very important for all schools to recruit the trust of parents and students.