2024 in review: Education

Editor’s note: This is the fourth in a five-part year in review.

In 2024, Union County paid witness to a changing landscape with new builds at various schools and changes to daily life for East Union students.

Awards

A year after nominating his wife Audrey for the Southwest Iowa Bandmasters Association’s Young Band Director Award, Ryan Linke was awarded the honor himself. The Creston Middle School band director was given the award in January based on a variety of factors, including a measurement of how his teaching has impacted his students and his work to develop and sustain growth in the band program.

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The Iowa Department of Education awarded Creston teacher Sarah Stephens with a Regional Teacher of the Year award. She became one of nine nominees to be nominated for the 2025 Iowa Teacher of the Year. The award celebrates excellence in teaching across the state. Stephens gave 14 years of teaching in elementary special education, as well as serving as an instructional coach, lead team member, peer mentor and middle school basketball coach. She also serves as a Paraeducator Certification Course instructor.

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In March 2025, retired Creston athletic and activities director Jeff Bevins will be honored for his work after being inducted into the Iowa High School Athletic Directors Association Hall of Fame. Bevins spent 15 years as Creston High School’s activities director, serving students in both the athletics and the arts. Bevins is one of five joining the Hall of Fame in March.

Leadership Personnel

Curriculum Director Jason Riley took over the position of Secondary Principal in East Union following the resignation of Bill Meiners. Riley immediately tackled the job with meetings to address changes to school policies, working with parents to inform them of chronic absenteeism laws.

Four-Day Week

East Union tackled a four-day schedule proposal with multiple public forums to address potential issues and concerns from parents. Throughout these sessions, it became clear East Union’s staffing problems were a priority, and the swap to a four-day schedule would help alleviate a few of the factors contributing to the issue.

Employment issues have been a struggle across the entire state of Iowa, which makes appealing to teachers at East Union even more of a struggle. In their attempts to entice new teachers to the district, former Secondary Principal Bill Meiners said, “The problem is, it’s like fishing without a worm in a pond with no fish.”

In addition, upcoming legislation to address chronic absenteeism gave more attention to the four-day week. The school justified an extra day without school to be used for personal appointments for students and staff, hoping to reduce the amount of time off to avoid both absenteeism and burnout, respectively.

Following a 3-2 vote in April, East Union voted to implement the four-day schedule for the 2024-25 school year.

Shooting threat

A Creston Middle School student was charged on April 4 for making terroristic threats. The student had made threats to bring a gun to school.

Construction

Creston Schools officially approved designs for their new early childhood center building in March. The building will be located west of the Creston Elementary/Middle School building on Academic Avenue. The current ECC building on North Elm Street will be torn down, with much of the land being sold to a housing development firm.

Construction is well underway for the new building, which is set to open for the 2025-26 school year. Traffic through Academic Avenue has been rerouted to assist with the new construction.

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East Union’s conversion of the Afton Care Center into an Infant Toddler Center took the majority of 2024 to refurbish and reconstruct the old center to fit the needs of early childhood care. While the center was scheduled for a late 2024 opening, the building’s opening has been delayed into 2025.

The center hopes to provide for a major issue in Afton: childcare for working families. The Infant Toddler Center is planned to provide a space for youngsters to grow and adapt to their motor functions through play and curious exploration.

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Thanks to a grant from the Iowa Department of Education, Southwestern Community College will be bringing to a life a new commercial driver’s license program for their students. The grant helped pay for a building addition and a driving range at the Agriculture Sciences Center. Ground broke on the addition in June, with an expected finish date in early 2025.

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East Union participated in the ZeroEyes program, installing new security features to help stop dangerous incidents before they occur. The program, described as “automated optical firearm detection,” uses AI to search for brandished firearms.

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As a part of their facility maintenance plan, SWCC approved multiple systems, including school-safe radios and an access control system, to help protect students during lockdowns.

Statewide

Iowa reeled with the consequences of a deadly shooting in Perry. On Jan. 4, high school student Dylan Butler opened fire in the Perry School District’s shared cafeteria during their morning breakfast program. A sixth-grade student died, and Perry High School Principal Dan Marburger died 10 days after the shooting from his injuries. Four students and two staff members were wounded, with the shooter killing himself from a self-inflicted shot.

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The Associated Press published a report in January that most schools statewide have yet to receive funding from a 2022 program which promised to spend $75 million in federal pandemic relief funds to improve school building security. More than 19 months since the programs implementation, the money only recently began to trickle out to schools.

Only $20.6 million were awarded to schools for upgrades to school security, but only $950,000 to 18 school districts were made for completed work. The vast majority was left unspent.

Local officials struggled to meet state and federal requirements to complete their applications while the contractors helping run the program received millions. Following the shooting in Perry, more attention was given to the program.

Since this report, as of November, $70.5 million in school safety improvement projects have been approved for 423 school districts. $14.34 million has been paid to 143 districts.

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Following implementation of a new 2024 law signed by Gov. Kim Reynolds in March, Iowa’s Area Education Agencies are now overseen by the state Department of Education under the reestablished division of special education. Reynolds had pushed for changes following a report that Iowa spent more on special education per-pupil than the national average, but special education students had lower scores than the national average.

This shift of oversight power was claimed by Education Department Director McKenzie Snow to implement accreditation and accountability measures including providing finance and data analysis, provide student evaluation and placement, help develop curriculum and instruction and resolve complaints.

As a part of this new law, increases to minimum teacher salaries and paraeducator pay were also made.