282.3  Admission and exclusion of pupils.
  1.  The board may exclude from school children under the age of six years when in its judgment such children are not sufficiently mature to be benefited by regular instruction, or any child who is found to be physically or mentally unable to attend school under section 299.5, or whose presence in school has been found to be injurious to the health of other pupils, or is efficiently taught for the scholastic year at a state institution. However, the board shall provide special education programs and services under chapters 256B, 257, and 273 for all children requiring special education.
  2.  The conditions of admission to public schools for work in the year immediately preceding the first grade and in the first grade shall be as follows:
  a.  A child under the age of six years on the fifteenth of September of the current school year shall not be admitted to a public school unless the board of directors of the school has adopted and put into effect courses of study for the school year immediately preceding the first grade, approved by the department of education, and has employed a practitioner or practitioners for this work with standards of training approved by the board of educational examiners.
  b.  No child shall be admitted to school work for the year immediately preceding the first grade unless the child is five years of age on or before the fifteenth of September of the current school year.
  c.  No child shall be admitted to the first grade unless the child is six years of age on or before the fifteenth of September of the current school year; except that a child under six years of age who has been admitted to school work for the year immediately preceding the first grade under conditions approved by the department of education, or who has demonstrated the possession of sufficient ability to profit by first-grade work on the basis of tests or other means of evaluation recommended or approved by the department of education, may be admitted to first grade at any time before December 31.
  3.  Nothing herein provided shall prohibit a school board from requiring the attainment of a greater age than the age requirements herein set forth.
[C97, §2782; C24, 27, 31, 35, 39, §4270; C46, 50, 54, 58, 62, 66, 71, 73, 75, 77, 79, 81, §282.3]
89 Acts, ch 135, §85; 89 Acts, ch 210, §9; 89 Acts, ch 265, §36; 2010 Acts, ch 1061, §180