What Does it Mean to Put Iowa's Students First?

On Jan. 24, Gov. Kim Reynolds signed arguably one of the most controversial bills of this legislative session into law. The bill, which is slated to take effect during the 2024-25 academic year, ensures both current and prospective students who attend private K-12 institutions will receive $7,598 in an education savings account to cover tuition, fees and other costs for each academic year of their education.

The Students First Act, formally known as House File 68, would phase in over the course of three years and would be funded by Iowa taxpayer dollars. Although the passage of this bill required heavy deliberation, it made its way through the legislature fairly quickly, being signed into law in just the third week of the session.

Quite predictably, this has caused both worry and excitement among Iowan parents, teachers and other education staff. While the bill’s passage is considered a significant win for some families, it is seen as a defeat for others. According to The Des Moines Register, Iowa’s Republican representatives have expressed that the bill is about freedom for families to make decisions while many Democrats feel the bill is spending money with no accountability and characterize it as a private school entitlement program with unknown costs and unlimited funding.

There are a plethora of senators and representatives that have voiced their?thoughts on the bill’s passage, but what about the voices of those directly impacted? Students, teachers, parents and taxpayers of all types of school systems can expect their lives to change as a result of the Students First Act, so what do they think?

A Public School Perspective

Webster City, Iowa, is a small town just 70 miles north of the state’s capital city. The town’s public high school has maintained about 600 students each academic year as has the town’s public elementary and middle schools, according to the United States Census Bureau’s National Center for Education Statistics. Like many of Iowa’s fairly small public schools, adequate funding can be difficult to acquire. When a bill is passed to grant money to private school students’ families, public schools worry they might face a multitude of challenges.

Webster City Community Schools Superintendent Mandy Ross has been one of many faculty members who have closely watched the trajectory of this bill. Ross has been actively supporting public school systems for 40 years in a variety of positions. Despite the bill seeming to have no direct impact on public schools, Ross has learned throughout her career that it may create future risks.?

“While I don’t have immediate concern for Webster City, I do worry about what’s going to happen a year or two or three from now,” she said. Specifically, Ross is concerned that the Students First Act will affect enrollment.

“There’s just a lot of fluidity of when we get kids and when kids leave. For example, we lost 35 students this year. That doesn’t impact us this year, it’s next year when you take 35 kids times about $7,600,” she explained. “The long-term implications are that programming in the public schools is going to get watered down because we don’t have enough kids and the funding that goes along with them to offer a robust program. If we’re giving the minimal basics, that to me is unfair to kids.”

As Ross illustrates, extra funding for private school families may contribute to a downward trend in enrollment numbers, which in turn decreases funding for the community’s education programs.

Webster City is home to a private school, St. Thomas Aquinas, which offers private education from preschool to sixth grade. It has long been established that Webster City Community Schools will provide transportation for St. Thomas Aquinas students. This has created not only possible transportation concerns for the students of St. Thomas Aquinas, but social strains as well. “I firmly believe that I’m passionate about making the best decisions for kids every day, and I just worry about resources being removed that allow us to make some of those best decisions, because it’s already tight as it is,” Ross said. “Expectations are high, funding is low... I think we are systematically creating a situation here of haves and have-nots.”

Ross understands the ramifications private school funding could have on the public school system, and she believes that education is key to bringing?the community together.

“[We must] continue to educate about what we’re doing with our students in our program, not only in Webster City, but in all public schools. I also think we have to help our committee recognize the systematic unraveling of public education. What’s happening right now is something that... hasn’t really been substantially overhauled in probably close to 30 years, and all of a sudden, in a matter of months, it is being watered down,” she said.

By continuously educating parents, teachers and students, Ross hopes to lead Webster City’s public school system through a confusing time.?

A Private School Perspective

The implementation of the Students First Act is seen as much less worrisome through the lens of a parent of three private school students, Suzy Sernett. Although the act seems to have generated polarization between public and private school systems, Sernett believes that’s somewhat of a misconception.

“This should not be a them-versus-us issue,” she said. “The choice of schooling should be left to the parents or guardians who know the child better than anyone else. Private schooling should be an option if indeed the parents determine that is the best environment for their child. It is important to recognize that before this bill many parents could not afford to make the?ultimate educational choice for their child due to the financial hardship that it would create.”

In the eyes of the Sernett family, the passing of this bill should remove a large portion of that burden to allow all children the option to pursue private education.

“We, as parents of private school children, have had to sacrifice in multiple ways for many years in order to send our children to private schooling that fit their needs better than public school,” Sernett said. “It is a false narrative that people link public tax dollars being used for private schooling as not fair.” Her family has paid private school tuition out-of-pocket in addition to providing personal transportation for her children and paying property taxes for the local public school which her children did not attend.

“The dollars that support all public schools come from many parents that receive no benefit from those schools,” Sernett said. “For the last 20 years, we have been paying taxes to the public school with zero benefit going towards our children.”

All in all, she finds the claim falls short in its failure to acknowledge these other factors. Beyond the simple benefit of financial aid, Sernett points out other ways both public and private school systems could begin to see widespread positive change.

“We believe that this bill will certainly begin to hold public schools more accountable for what and how they are educating children,” she said. “This will make public schools more responsible for the outcomes that their students are learning and they will have to become more academically competitive with private schools.”

Additionally, Sernett sees potential for the funding to help develop extracurricular programs.

“The bill may allow for private schools to have the opportunity to offer extracurricular activities such as athletics, music, drama and speech,” she said.

According to Sernett, teachers could see a salary raise as well.

“Private schools are not able to pay their teachers the same compensation as public schools and many teachers have to get their health insurance and retirement from another source,” she said. “This bill may allow private schools to compensate their teaching staff at a more competitive level. This in turn could encourage more people that want to be teachers to get into teaching in a private school setting.”

From an increase of extracurricular programs to better compensated teachers, private schools could expect to reap a plethora of benefits that Sernett believes should have happened 20 years ago.

Many Iowa communities will be affected by the phase-in of the Students First Act. Hundreds of Iowans, including taxpayers, parents, students and teachers, will undergo a significant systemic change within the next few years, whether they favor or oppose the bill. It is difficult to predict exactly what effects we will see in these communities, but with passionate individuals like Mandy Ross and Suzy Sernett involved on both sides of the debate, the future of all education for all students will hopefully be bright.?

This article was written by Emma Stroner for the Drake Political Review.