The Republican who leads the Iowa Senate Education Committee is sponsoring a plan to get rid of the state mandate that Iowa schools have at least one school nurse and a teacher librarian on staff.
That’s Senator Amy Sinclair of Allerton. Her proposal also would get rid of the mandate that schools collect data on whether students have had vision and dental screenings as well as a blood test to see if they suffer from lead poisoning.
Emily Piper, a lobbyist for the Iowa Association of School Boards, says most of the ideas in the bill came from school boards seeking more local control.
A Republican senator who joined Sinclair in supporting the bill says he’s interested in reducing administrative costs in schools and he sees this bill as one way to do that.
