Iowa
‘¿Habla español?’ Iowa schools look overseas to find Spanish teachers
See how Iowa schools are bring language teachers from Spain
see how Iowa schools are filling world language teacher positions and enriching classrooms through an exchange program with Spain.
The sounds of Dallas Center-Grimes High School Spanish students singing “¿Por Que Te Vas?” by Jeanette with varying levels of gusto and prodding by teacher Antton Zuazu Hernández may seem like an unusual way to learn.
But the sing-along is how Zuazu Hernández, a native of Spain, helps engage his students and share his culture as part of a teacher-exchange program.
“I feel I’m a messenger in a way, and this is part of the program,” he said. “We’re expected to both bring our culture here and bring your culture back to Spain.”
Zuazu Hernández — who taught English in Spain — is among 26 bilingual teachers in Iowa as part of an exchange program between the Iowa Department of Education and Spain’s Ministry of Education and Culture.
“(The program) was created to address the shortage of qualified Spanish teachers in the state and helps expose students to different world cultures,” said Heather Doe, the department’s spokesperson. “… The Exchange Visiting Teachers from Spain program has been very successful in helping schools, especially in rural communities, hire highly qualified Spanish teachers.”
Iowa has nearly 1,200 world language teachers in kindergarten through college, according to the Iowa World Language Association website.
Some foreign language teachers in Iowa moved to the U.S. and later obtained teaching credentials. Others were recruited to work in Iowa schools.
Iowa schools, including Waukee Community School District, even offer financial incentives as a recruitment tool for hard to fill positions.
“Many of them, like me, will arrive with teaching experience from our home countries, but in the process of validating the credentials in the U.S. we find obstacles,” said Elizabeth Bulthuis, a Waukee High School world languages teacher who immigrated from Ecuador in 2003, “and the validating of credentials also can be lengthy and costly, because of all the educational systems and how they are structured differently.”
Exchange program is beneficial to schools, superintendent
The Spain exchange program — which brings hundreds of teachers to schools across the U.S. — comes with several requirements.
The Spanish teachers must be certified in the language with at least two years of experience, Doe said. Additionally, candidates go through a vetting process at the federal, state and local levels. Teachers also attend a three-day state orientation.
Schools and districts participating in the program pay an $895 fee to offset licensing and orientation costs, Doe said.
The program is a blessing for rural areas struggling to fill positions teaching foreign language, special education, math and science.
“It’s very difficult to even get an applicant,” said Deron Stender, the superintendent at the rural Creston Community School District, “… When I say it’s difficult to even find (the candidates) they don’t exist. And if they do, they’re probably going to be in a larger metro, urban, suburban areas where there’s just more opportunities.”
St. Anthony’s conducts bilingual class for its students
St. Anthony’s Catholic school brings Spanish speaking teachers to the U.S. to teach students the language.
Zuazu Hernández taught Spanish and drove a bus at Creston during the 2024-25 school year. But falling enrollment and budget cuts resulted in his position being eliminated.
A program drawback is teachers only have three-year visas, he said.
“When you have a very good individual that comes to your district from a foreign country after the third year, you still have that need again,” Stender said. “So, we just open it back up to the same program, but you’re doing another refresh of the process, and while that’s a challenge, it’s still better than not having a teacher in the classroom.”
Not every world language teacher comes from Spain
Another issue schools have faced is filling teaching positions for immersion programs.
In the early 2000s, St. Anthony’s started a Spanish-immersion program after several families with children of Honduras and Guatemala descent wanted their kids to have a Catholic school education and maintain their connection to the Spanish language.
“A lot of teachers go to school to teach Spanish, but they go to school to teach it as a standalone Spanish class,” principal Jennifer Raes said. “… We were really searching for teachers that could come here and teach in any subject, just a regular teacher, but also has the skills of teaching in Spanish and English.”
Marisol Guerra, a Honduras native, came to the U.S. in 2010 to help start St. Anthony’s program. Guerra manage to come to the U.S. as part of that year’s Spain exchange program cohort.
More than a decade later, the school offers classes in English and an immersive track where 85% of the students’ day is spent learning in Spanish. While families were hesitant in the beginning to take part in the immersion program, there is now a waitlist of almost a dozen families.
“There was uncertainty, (but) they wanted their children to learn a second language,” Guerra said, “and they wanted without knowing, I think, they also were exposing them to other cultures and opening their minds to other things.”
The over the years, St. Anthony’s has employed teachers who moved to America from Spain, Mexico and other Latin American countries.
The over representation of teachers from Spain likely is due to other countries not offering similar exchange programs, said Bulthuis, a member of the Iowa World Language Association.
It took several years for the veteran teacher — who came to Iowa in 2005 — to become credentialed to teach in the U.S. because she was not part of an exchange program.
“I think that world language teachers can be difficult to recruit because the pool of candidates is relatively small, so teachers need a strong language proficiency, cultural knowledge and all the teaching certifications,” said Bulthuis, who left Ecuador in 2003 because of the country’s financial crisis, “(but) many people who speak another language also have opportunity in other careers.”
Bulthuis does not recommend loosening the criteria to teach in Iowa but suggests improving or streamlining the process for an international teacher to obtain a state teaching license.
“… Not every Spanish speaking country is going to have (an exchange) program like that in place to help their community,” Bulthuis said,
Cultural exchange
Educators say employing international teachers goes beyond language skills.
“International educators can bring tremendous cultural and linguistic expertise to the classroom, which is an incredible skill and very valuable for students,” Bulthuis said.
That cultural exchange can carry over into a school’s lesson plans.
Zuazu Hernández often lets his American students’ interests drive what he teaches them about Spanish culture. These questions have ranged from wanting more insight into bullfighting, the Spanish school system, stereotypes and politics.
“Sometimes, they are more interested in me as a person, or the things I can tell them about Spain than the actual Spanish language,” he said, “but they have that curiosity that I think all teachers, we have to take advantage of.”
While reading “¡Viva el toro!” by Lisa Ray Turner and Blaine Ray, a novel about bullfighting, Zuazu Hernández talked to students about his family’s love of the cultural spectacle and how it is losing popularity in Spain because of how the bulls are treated.
Zuazu Hernández is open about his perspective on the practice to his students.
“To me, bullfighting is not worth sustaining just because it’s a tradition — traditions are not always good or acceptable — but rather because it’s an art, and it expands the depth of human understanding of the most intense truths in life, with death as the scariest of all,” he told the Des Moines Register in an email.
His students appreciate his candidness and the chance to learn from teachers with different lived experiences.
“I like having different teachers because they have different experiences, and I think it adds to the overall class,” said Grace Heston, an 11th grader Dallas Center-Grimes High School. “When you’re learning about Spanish, you’re not just learning about a language, you’re learning about the culture associated with it.”
Samantha Hernandez covers education for the Register. Reach her at (515) 851-0982 or svhernandez@gannett.com.
MONONA, Iowa (KCRG) – One person was injured and a suspect is dead after a stabbing in Monona Wednesday night.
Monona police responded to a report of a stabbing in the 200 block of South Page Street at 7:37 p.m.
Officers found a person outside a residence suffering from multiple stab wounds. The person was taken to a local hospital with a tourniquet applied.
According to investigators, the suspect barricaded himself on the second floor of the residence, where he had access to several firearms. The Clayton County CERT Team was called in after several attempts to get the suspect to exit the residence failed.
The suspect was found dead from what police believe was a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
This is an ongoing investigation. No further information has been released.
Copyright 2026 KCRG. All rights reserved.
Iowa
Democrats will debate in Iowa US Senate primary shaped by outside money and big-name endorsements
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Two Democrats vying to be Iowa’s next U.S. senator are scheduled to debate Thursday, as each seeks to convince voters he’s better positioned to flip the Republican-held seat in a contest that has seen heavy outside spending and high-profile endorsements.
State lawmakers Zach Wahls and Josh Turek are competing in a June 2 primary. It is one of a few remaining competitive Democratic Senate primaries this year, as the party looks to find the best approach to reclaim the U.S. Senate this fall.
Iowa’s Republican Sen. Joni Ernst opted out of a reelection bid, leaving the seat open for the first time since she replaced retiring Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin in 2014. Republican Senate leaders have backed Ashley Hinson, a congresswoman representing northeast Iowa, committing $29 million for her to help keep their thin majority.
Democrats see an opportunity to flip seats in the once-competitive state, despite President Donald Trump’s double-digit win in the last presidential election and an all-Republican federal delegation. But first they need to settle which federal candidate will be at the top of the ticket. Early voting began Wednesday.
An influx of cash has shaped the final stretch
While Wahls and Turek have raised and spent similar amounts, a Democratic political organization, VoteVets, has spent about $7 million to support Turek in the final stretch of the campaign. That’s more than the two candidates have spent combined.
Turek, who is not a veteran, was born with spina bifida after his father’s exposure to chemicals while serving in the Vietnam War. The group has said Turek is uniquely positioned to advocate for veterans’ services, especially health care and military families.
Wahls has criticized the influx of cash as insiders in Washington trying to exert outsized influence, and it’s likely to come up again Thursday, as it did at an Iowa Press debate last week.
Tensions over the future of the party
Wahls has been vocal about who should — or should not — lead Senate Democrats, saying he would not vote for Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York to be the caucus leader.
“The leadership of Chuck Schumer has failed the Democratic Party, it has failed the state and it has failed this country,” Wahls said during last week’s debate. “Dark money has an agenda, and that agenda is to protect the broken status quo and the failed leadership of Sen. Schumer.”
Schumer has tried to keep the focus on Republicans.
Wahls is endorsed by U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who joined him in Iowa for campaign events over the weekend. The progressive senator told voters the Senate needs Democrats who are willing to “get in there and stand up and fight.” Wahls also often highlights the support he’s seen from unions and local elected officials.
Turek responded to Wahls’ criticism saying he’s not a “DC insider.”
“I don’t know these folks,” he said. Turek explained his criteria for leader candidates but stopped short of saying he wouldn’t support Schumer.
“I will go up and ask whoever is deciding to run for leadership … ‘What are you going to do for Iowa? What are you going to do for Iowans? What are you going to do for the middle class?’” Turek said.
In the last week, Turek unveiled a rare endorsement from Harkin, who represented Iowa in Washington for three decades, as well as former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Turek also has collected endorsements from sitting U.S. senators, including Illinois’ Tammy Duckworth, New Hampshire’s Maggie Hassan and Nevada’s Catherine Cortez Masto.
Drawing greater contrast on issues
In the first debate last week, Turek and Wahls were aligned on many issues. Both said that they would not support the Republican president’s tariffs or the war in Iran and that they do support raising the minimum wage and restoring health care access with a public insurance option. They criticized corruption in Washington and proposed higher taxes on corporations and wealthy Americans.
But they also started to draw some contrasts. More of that is likely Thursday.
Wahls referenced a law Turek supported in the Iowa legislature that makes it a state crime to be in the U.S. illegally. Turek defended his vote, saying it was Biden-era legislation and stressed the importance of a secure U.S.-Mexico border. Turek said he also supports an easier path to citizenship and reforms to immigration enforcement under the Trump administration.
Turek highlighted his working-class background and contrasted his work for a nonprofit with Wahls’ work for a super PAC focused on electing young Democrats.
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Follow the AP’s coverage of the 2026 election at https://apnews.com/projects/elections-2026/.
Fort Dodge Donnybrook champion Dru Ayala
Hear why Fort Dodge’s Donnybrook Champion Dru Ayala, brother of Drake Ayala, chose the Hawkeyes and has unfinished business in high school
Iowa State wrestling has added another lightweight through the transfer portal, earning the commitment of former Hawkeye Dru Ayala on Wednesday, May 13.
Ayala has been with the Hawkeyes for two seasons, with an 11-4 record as a true freshman and not competing in 2025-26. The 125-pounder will have at least three years of eligibility remaining.
“Grateful for where I’ve been, excited for where I’m going. Go Cyclones,” Ayala said in an Instagram post.
Before his time in Iowa, Ayala was a four-time state medalist with Fort Dodge. He made the state semifinals all four years and had a 153-16 record. He is the brother of former Hawkeye wrestler Drake Ayala, who recently accepted a position as an assistant coach with the Cyclones.
Iowa State has had multiple major departures with Anthony Echemendia, Christian Castillo, Daniel Herrera and others heading to the transfer portal. As a result, the Cyclones have been busy adding to the roster, with Dru Ayala joining Ayden Smith (Rutgers), Brayden Thompson (Oklahoma State) and Rin Sakamoto (Oklahoma State).
Eli McKown covers high school sports and wrestling for the Des Moines Register. Contact him at Emckown@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @EMcKown23.
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