Legislators discuss women, education, and health care

WASHINGTON — District 46 Sen. Dawn Driscoll and District 92 Rep. Heather Hora spoke with a room full of interested individuals at the Washington Chamber of Commerce Legislative Briefing about topics including the definition of a woman, education, and health care among many other topics.

The Washington Chamber of Commerce is a non-partisan organization, and Executive Director Michelle Redlinger explained, “We are here to encourage legislative action that promotes business growth, local economy and strong community.”

In consideration of the location for the briefing, at the Washington County Hospital and Clinics, Driscoll spoke about health care topics before taking questions and comments from attendees.

“We have a bill out there that is going to allow provisions by physicians and surgeons and people with those kinds of degrees to be able to have the ability to be first responders,” Driscoll explained House Bill 2411 which was first introduced Feb. 8.

“We've heard that from our rural communities that they don't have quite as many first responder volunteers, and this will give them the ability to have an easy way into becoming a first responder if they so choose,” Driscoll said.

Additional topics discussed by Driscoll and Hora gravitated around education.

“Another bill I have that I know is getting quite a bit of discussion, and I think the county schools are very, very excited about, is the bill I proposed for the school start date,” Driscoll said.

According to Driscoll, legislators have heard from many schools that the current start date, which is Aug. 23, is becoming a problem as it gets closer to beginning on a Friday which would push back the overall school calendar to continuing past Labor Day.

Highland and WACO Superintendent Ken Crawford stated that an earlier start date would be awesome

Washington Community School District Superintendent Willie Stone echoed agreement with Crawford.

“There are two bills out there,” Stone said. “One would have the start date the Monday preceding the 23rd the other on Tuesday. I don’t really care which one it is. Either would be good for us and our reasoning behind it is probably different from what some people have said, but we’re looking at trying to end our semester before Christmas break.”

According to Stone, Washington school’s semester end usually lands approximately a week after winter break.

“That’s a huge thing right now,” he said. “Every year we’ve had our semester end a week after Christmas break, so, we send kids home for two weeks or a week and a half, and they don’t do anything with academics. Then we expect them to be able to come back and finish their semester.”

Another hot topic in education discussed at the briefing included the possible restructuring of the AEA.

“I know education is big,” Hora said, “I’m sure some of you have questions about what we’re going to with the AEA … but just know that the governor’s proposal is being reworked. We’ve had many meetings in the house with the chiefs of the AEAs and different superintendents and teachers and parents and there are continual meetings at all times about what we’re doing to with the AEA.”

“Change is coming, it’s just going to look a little different from what the Governor’s bill looked like,” she said.

While the future of the AEA is uncertain following Governor Kim Reynolds announcing plans to restructure, those in attendance made it known that they felt the AEA plays an important role in education, and they wish to see it protected.

A former AEA employee for 36 years, that served much of the Washington County area and retired three years ago, said she was aware change was coming before the governor’s announcement, but not that kind of change.

“This fall we knew changes were coming and the governor was going to pick up different legislation,” she said. “You know, change is always difficult and scary. But being a retired person, I was nto scared at all. We have so much going for us at the AEA and changes make us better.”

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When she heard the governor’s address, this former educator says she was shocked at the scope of what was being discussed.

“As an educator, I used the AEA immensely,” a retired educator of 44 years told Driscoll and Hora. “One of my students was diagnosed with macular degeneration and would be unable to see in a matter of a year. What do you do as an art educator then?”

According to this educator, she worked with AEA experts to creating a plan of bathing color with smell.

“We sent home to mom that pink would be rose and yellow would be lemon and used that to try to educate her as a seeing person that would need to be blind,” she said. “I couldn’t have done that without my AEA thinking out of the box and going to those experts.”

A husband of a teacher working that day attended to speak on her behalf. As he read notes from his wife, he said teachers like his wife feel the AEA bill “is pretty kind of rotten.”

“It makes it difficult for smaller district to access if there was limited AEAs,” he said.

Other legislation pertaining to education includes defining absenteeism, extending agricultural teacher contracts, requiring Holocaust education, and making absences for FFA participation excused.

As discussion continued, Hora and multiple attendees turned to the topic of defining a woman.

“We are defining what a woman is in Iowa code,” Hora said. “It seems silly, but that is something that we are doing so that we can protect our children.”

Robin Rees, a substitute teacher, mom, and wife of a pastor in Washington, asked Hora to further explain what that definition would be.

“I think personally that it’s really important that we have an absolute definition and one that has lasted through from the beginning,” Rees said. “I think this is a topic that affects all of us in one way or another. So, I’m curious what you guys would say. How would you define me?”

Hora answered that a woman would be defined as somebody who produces ova and the man is the one that fertilizes those ova.

“All that our bill does is make it so that is in code, because what we want to happen, hopefully, is we can say that your birth certificate can never be changed,” Hora said. “Because what can happen in other places is they will go in and change that birth certificate to whatever that surgery is.”

According to Hora, this bill would ensure the birth certificate would stay the same with the addition of whatever new steps were taken.

“It will verify both,” she said. “That way if you’re in college sports or anything like that, a woman is always a woman and you’re going to go by your birth certificate. That way it’ll protect college sports, it protects bathrooms, it protects all of that.”

Former educator Jan Galagher expressed concerns about defining a woman.

“I do think we need to very concerned about the mental health of those people who don’t fit the other categories that we think are traditional, and their mental health is really at a breaking point,” she said. “We need to be careful about them.”

While Hora and Driscoll stayed past their designated time to address as many questions and comments as they could, they eventually had to leave for another engagement. However, the Washington Chamber of Commerce will host another legislative briefing March 8. The location for the next briefing still is to be determined.

Comments: AnnaMarie.Ward@southeastiowaunion.com