Iowa

The educators from Cornell College, a private liberal arts college in Mount Vernon, Iowa, were wounded “in a serious incident” on Monday, while participating in a partnership program with Beihua University in the city of Jilin, in northeastern China, according to the college.

user listed as the mod @jimrob4@midwest.social was last active 8 months ago.

This ain't exactly the most active community on here and there's yet to be any vitriol on here that'd need moderating but it's at least something to be aware of.

edit: I humbly accept my new status as the regent of the mighty @jimrob4@midwest.social, my reign of terror will be legendary and act as a warning to all those who would dare question

After two days of rain (and snow), it’s nice to see some blue sky!

First thing: Many parts of the school system are done by regional Area Education agencies (AEAs), things like special education, curriculum, media, etc. (heres the link to their website if you want to learn more iowaaea.org). Their boards are elected by school districts.

A version of the changes proposed by Governor Reynolds has already passed the Iowa house (hf2612). The part of the bill I'm focusing on here is how it allows for school districts to use state and federal $ that goes to AEAs and use it for themselves.

The thing that got me to start writing this post was a section of the most recent Iowa press. Todd Abrahamson, superintendent of the Okoboji Community School District and one of the few school superintendents in the state in favor of the proposed changes, when asked about what Okoboji would do with the money said (in more diplomatic language, 8:50) that Okoboji would poach staff from the AEAs to work exclusively for Okoboji and not for other districts.

Okoboji is a relatively wealthy tourism town, and is covered by the Prarie Lakes Area Education Agency in Northwest Iowa. Okoboji is an island of wealth in an otherwise especially rural and economically depressed area of the state where school districts just don't have resources to offer many kinds of resources on their own.

There's other things in the bill as well, shifting parts of curriculum more into the private sector. Also it would put the AEAs under the direct control of the state government.

What could possibly go wrong?

It looks like Iowa DNR - at best - was negligent in reviewing permitting for the water usage of the proposed carbon capture pipeline.

There's certainly something to be said for how this somehow just keeps happening to things on the orbit of ethanol and corn.

Notable excerpts:

OMAHA, Nebraska – A company that planned to build a carbon pipeline through Iowa and four other states is canceling the project.

Navigator CO2 is blaming “the unpredictable nature of the regulatory and government processes involved, particularly in South Dakota and Iowa.”

The rest is various statements from involved organizations.

Excerpts:

According to a release from the office of the governor, the Iowa CDL INfrastructure Grant program will award $4,844,092 to ten community colleges in Iowa. The funds go towards building new facilities or adding onto existing ones, as well as purchasing new equipment.

The release states that the investment in CDL programs will help colleges support an increase of 1,305 participants in their annual class size.

The release specified that the grants will be administered as reimbursement and programs must offer competency-based training or a training course that will allow a student to complete training and take the licensing exam within a 30-day window. Additionally, colleges that are part of the program will have agreed to a 5-year tuition freeze for their CDL programs once the project from the award is complete.

I'm particularly excited to see the tuition freeze agreement to help offset the injection of funds.

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