Meeting Public Comments

Margaret Buckton [Rural School Advocates of Iowa and Urban Education Network]

Thank you for bringing HF 150 forward. Rural schools are registered in support. UEN is undecided, as no UEN schools share staff through operational sharing at this point. Adding a special education director to the list of shared positions is valuable. Large school districts have a special education director, who provides leadership in organizing IEP meetings with parents, staff and AEA, help direct Medicaid billing which lowers what would otherwise be additional special education deficits, and coordinates the implementation of rule and law changes coming from both state and federal directions. Most of all, special education directors analyze the student achievement evidence of students with disabilities and coordinate training and school improvement for educators to help them support students with disabilities to success.Special education law and implementation are both extremely complicated. Adding this role to the plate of an overtaxed special education teacher or principal or even superintendent, as rural schools must often do today, does not provide as much support as a shared special education director would be able to provide. RSAI encourages you to move this bill forward.