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COMMUNIQUÉ Set it... A publication of the Iowa State Education Association – JUNE 2013 – Vol. 50, No. 7 E-DUES AVAILABLE NOW! and forget it! Weeks of negotiations for the Iowa Legislature come to an end The Iowa Senate concluded on the 129th day of the 2013 session and the House on the 130th day, more than two weeks late. The session ended with a compromise package on education funding and programs. The session started with the introduction of three education bills, some of which included provisions unacceptable to public school professionals. Whittling down the packages took months of back-and-forth between the Iowa House and Senate, and weeks of negotiations among the 10 members of the Conference Committee on Education. The session ended with House File 215—an education package which provides a compromise agreement on funding for schools and many policy components. The logjam in negotiations broke when the Iowa Senate agreed to final demands by House Republicans that home school provisions be kept in the bill in exchange for Allowable Growth (now known as Supplemental State Aid – SSA). Cut from the bill was an extremely onerous provision about Home Rule which would have had the potential effect of disadvantaging school districts with less funding available for extra programming. Also excluded from the bill was language requiring teacher evaluations to be conducted annually with a reliance on standardized student test scores. "Overall, we are pleased with the outcome of the compromise. While the funding levels aren't as high as we would have liked, given the split in the Legislature and the hard-fought negotiations to get us where we are, I'd say we got a fair package," said Tammy Wawro, president of the ISEA. Under the bill, Supplemental State Aid (SSA) is set for the next two years. FY 13-14 is set at 2 percent SSA + 2 percent one-time funding. FY 14-15 is set at 4 percent SSA. This means that school districts will have the ability to plan their budgets for the next two years without having to wait on the Legislature to decide funding levels. The ISEA worked with Senate Democrats, and the Governor's office to craft a compromise that purged the use of standardized test scores as the basis for teacher evaluations and created a Council on Educator Development which, over the next three years, will conduct a study and make recommendations about a statewide teacher and administrator evaluation system. The Council requires input from educators' personal experiences as a way of improving and finding the best evaluation systems for Iowa. The recommendations shall be submitted to the Governor and the General Assembly by November 15, 2016. "The Council on Educator Development is a huge leap forward for us as the national debate over the use of standardized test scores for teacher evaluations heats up. This allows us to slow down, take stock, and really find out what is working with our evaluation system, what it is that we need to tweak, and how this can best support student learning. The bottom line is that we all want what's best for Iowa's public school students, so this allows us to figure out a system that gets us there," said Wawro. HF 215 also codifies teacher leader roles in schools and classrooms and finally provides compensation for those roles. Education professionals who choose to take on additional leadership roles have the opportunity to work with their school district to receive compensation for their additional work. Beginning in FY 2014-15, the Teacher Leadership Models become optional for school districts wishing to participate. School districts opting into the program will be able to receive funds to raise the minimum teacher salaries to $33,500 annually, with the remaining school districts cont.' on page 7 IN THIS ISSUE 3 PRESIDENT'S COLUMN What this legislative session means for Iowa students and educators 5 STUDENT PROGRAM ISU future teachers' group quickly grows to largest in state 9 PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT Look what's happening in Professional Development