(Des Moines) — Lawmakers in the Iowa House and Senate have approved a pilot program aimed at curbing violent behavior in classrooms.
By a 95-3 vote, the House approved Senate File 2360 with amendments Wednesday, while the Senate approved the legislation 48-1 Thursday. Representative Cecil Dolecheck of Mount Ayr chairs the House Education Committee. He says the bill has evolved since originally being passed by the Senate in February.
"I had several corresponding meetings between Senator (Amy) Sinclair and myself and other interested parties, including teachers, administrators and everybody else to try to put together a classroom behavior to deal with what has been transpiring in some of our classrooms," said Dolecheck. "That's teachers being attacked, other students being attacked and the like and how to control a classroom and what behavioral responses that teachers need to know about and put in place."
The bill includes funding for a pilot program that would create therapeutic classrooms or calming rooms and puts reporting requirements in place when a teacher must clear a classroom due to violent behavior. Because of the suspension of the legislature due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Dolecheck says the timeline will be shifted to the 2021-2022 school year for funding.
"We were extremely close to having this finalized early on before we had to recess because of the pandemic," said Dolecheck. "It's unfortunate that we've had to make some changes in the implementation or timelines in retrospect because of that."
The House did strip language that would have specified that physically removing a student from a classroom is not corporal punishment, which is illegal in Iowa. Representative Mary Mascher — a Democrat from Iowa City — says that language would have disproportionately affected minority students.
"Many of you have been getting the hundreds of emails from Iowans across the state who had enormous concerns about expanded our corporal punishment language in the code," said Mascher.
The bill was on a list of demands from the Des Moines Chapter of Black Lives Matter on Twitter, in which the group urged lawmakers to vote down the bill. The amended bill also eliminated language that would have granted immunity to school employees from civil or criminal prosecution for physically contacting a student. Mascher says lawmakers are trying to strike a balance.
"That was also an area that was identified that they felt went too far," said Mascher. "We do need to hold a teacher accountable if they are misusing any of the provisions in code currently, but also we wanted to make sure that no one retaliated against a teacher if they would happen to use physical force with a child."
The bill now heads to Governor Kim Reynolds for her consideration.
"behavior" - Google News
June 12, 2020 at 08:00PM
https://ift.tt/2MTxNtG
Iowa House, Senate approve classroom behavior room pilot program - KMAland
"behavior" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2We9Kdi
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Iowa House, Senate approve classroom behavior room pilot program - KMAland"
Post a Comment