Look for comprehensive coverage as a challenging, consequential school year begins
Across Iowa, you can see and hear the approach of a new school year.
Families flocked to stores last week to stock up on school supplies and buy new clothes during the state sales tax holiday.
High school football practice started Monday, and the sounds of marching bands practicing new routines float through neighborhoods.
I got the opportunity to speak with Des Moines Public Schools interim Superintendent Matt Smith this week, and he views the opening of school as "full of hope and possibilities" for students, parents and teachers.
Yet he acknowledged that this school year presents an extraordinary constellation of challenges. Districts have struggled to hire enough teachers to staff classrooms and bus drivers to get students there. Test data show many students have ground to make up academically after more than two years of COVID-related disruptions to learning.
More: Iowa state assessment shows DMPS' continued struggle to teach Black male students math
Horror over the May 24 shooting deaths of 19 students and two adults at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, hangs in the back of many parents’ and teachers’ minds. And public schools and their staffs have become the focus of divisive debates over parent rights, racial equity and sexual identity.
Smith approaches his first full year as interim superintendent with a focus on staff.
“I don’t think it’s a secret that public education in general is under the light, under the scope,” he said, and teachers feel unsettled.
He wants teachers to know that while he and the community have high expectations, they also have his full confidence and deserve support and grace.
The Des Moines Register plans comprehensive coverage of both the opportunities and challenges as this consequential school year begins.
You’ll see stories in the next few weeks examining:
teacher and bus driver shortages
how inflation and supply chain disruptions are affecting the prices of school meals and what children will eat this fall
the impact from changes to Iowa’s open enrollment laws
the status of school construction projects around the metro
The Register’s news staff has long focused on education as an important coverage topic for Iowa. It’s both a key to unlocking individual opportunity and the foundation for a robust state economy.
Thank you to our subscribers, who make this kind of in-depth, issues-based reporting possible.
— Carol Hunter, executive editor, chunter@registermedia.com
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Look for comprehensive coverage as a challenging, consequential school year begins
