DES MOINES, Iowa (Gray Television Iowa Capitol Bureau) – Iowa lawmakers gathered under the gold dome in Des Moines for the first day of the legislative session Monday. Lawmakers spoke about the issues they’d like to tackle this year.

Republicans have committed tens of millions of dollars to pay for private school education. This year, both Republicans and Democrats say they’re working on policy aimed at public schools.

Senate Majority Leader Jack Whitver says that education makes up about half of the state’s budget, and Republicans want to make sure the education system is the best it can be.

“We want to make sure that we have some of the best schools in the country so we’ll continue to work on education. This year, I think you’re going to see a lot of focus on our public schools and what we can do to get better services, get better results and continue to move our education system forward,” Whitver said.

House Minority Leader Jennifer Konfrst says they’ll be paying attention to the lack of oversight for education savings accounts as well as any changes to the law that banned books in public schools that include sex acts.

“As we look towards this session, we’re obviously going to pay attention to whether or not there will be new legislation to ban books. Republicans doubled down today on how they like banning books and how they’d want to, you know, do more legislation since some things are in the courts,” Konfrst said.

House Speaker Pat Grassley says Republican lawmakers are planning to look into empowering teachers with disciplinary tools.

“This session, we’ll dive into Iowa’s K-12 educational standards to ensure they are setting our students and teachers up for success. We have heard from many teachers who have to deal with so many distractions and behavioral issues in the classroom that they can’t spend enough time teaching,” Grassley said.

Grassley says they want to make sure teachers are being compensated fairly as well.

Flags across the state are at half staff through the rest of the week in remembrance of 11-year-old Amir Joliff, who was killed in the Perry school shooting last week. As the legislature gavels in, both parties in the Iowa House say it’s time to act in making sure students feel safe going to school.

Monday’s session in the Iowa House began with a moment of silence for the victims in Perry.

House Speaker Pat Grassley says this session, Republicans will look at increasing school security.

“It means investing in school security. It means prioritizing school resource officers. It means protecting children’s mental health. It means teaching resilience over victimhood. And it means ridding our classrooms and school libraries of inappropriate content,” Grassley said.

House Minority Leader Jennifer Konfrst says they’ll be looking at access to mental health care and strengthening gun safety laws.

“Let’s address mental health for kids. We’ve been talking about funding mental health for a long time. But let’s also look at access to firearms and how we can keep people safe. Let’s also look at, you know, activities in the schools and what we could do to support our kids,” Konfrst said.

Republicans hold a supermajority in both chambers of the legislature – meaning Republicans can act without any Democratic support. With that, we asked Konfrst if any legislative restrictions on guns stood a chance. She says those measures aren’t likely to pass and are missed opportunity for Republicans to support “common sense solutions”.

Copyright 2024 KCRG. All rights reserved.