Dear Senator, Representative, or Governor....

Dear Senator, Representative, or Governor,

I am writing once again in opposition of a proposed bill. Last year, despite offering to meet and discuss the bills being presented and what I could see as potential negative impacts, I heard mostly crickets. I want to reach out and do the same again. I want to offer to come to Des Moines, or meet in one of the communities that you represent back home. I would love to sit down, have a coffee, and learn from each other. It would be easy for me to villainize you and group you with others that I feel are doing wrong for their constituents, but I feel as though I have worked to connect with each of you in some way shape or form, and this past year I have really tried to take an unbiased approach to learning about you and what you represent.

To break the ice I would like to tell you a little bit about myself. I am a citizen of Wyoming, IA and former resident of Maquoketa. I have been an Iowan all my life, and love this state so much that the thought of moving my family to another state makes me nauseated. I have an amazing wife and three beautiful children. Lincoln is in 3rd grade, McKinley is in 1st, and Madi is just over a year and a half old. I grew up in a fairly conservative household with my dad being a registered republican and yet as a public school leader, he truly felt it was important for me to be my own person. I am more of a right leaning independent if I had to describe my political ideology with a tinge of rebellious libertarian. I believe in social programming and fiscal responsibility. I am a supporter of the second amendment with common sense gun laws. I am a supporter of school choice, but firmly believe that taxpayer funding should be invested in public programs. Yes, I am a public school educator, but I say that with a wince. Not because I am not proud of my profession or at all ashamed, but because I feel that with the way times are now, I instantly get grouped, labeled, or thought to only think one way. This couldn’t be further from the truth. This is the same reason that I have spent this past year trying to learn more about each of you because I didn’t want to see an “R” or “D” next to your name and instantly assume I knew everything I needed to know about you. While Iowa is a red state based on elections, I truly believe we are a purple state based on beliefs. Iowa is an amazing place that throughout its history, has been a strong beacon of bipartisanship and keeping the people first. Governor Ray, one of the best Republican governors in history in my mind, did exactly that.

Today I am going to focus on HR68 (HSB-1) and SF94 (SSB1022, but would also like to be able to discuss additional bills with you at any time that may impact our public schools and especially the public school that I lead within your represented communities.

As a fiscally conservative and socially liberal person, I heavily believe in local control, fiscal responsibility, and accountability. You could say I have a “you do you” approach and an “I care” mentality. I feel this legislation though, is incredibly fiscally irresponsible and also does not do what it needs to ensure that ALL students in Iowa receive the best education possible. I can go into great detail on how our schools have been underfunded consistently for the past decade and that this has led to massive shortcomings in some areas despite all of our best intentions and efforts in public schools. We are addressing more than we ever have when students enter the walls of our buildings on a daily basis (If you have never looked into Volmer’s research on this, I highly encourage you to do so). Estimates show that the cost per student to attempt to address everything that has been added to public schools plates should cost around $14,584. This is almost double the amount that we receive in state funding currently per student. While you can find numbers that say we receive much more that the roughly $8000 a year per pupil, those numbers are when looking at including the additional funding we receive to address learning needs and issues of students (especially those with special needs or that receive title one services), maintain facilities, and train staff. When SSA is short changed, and all of our expenses in salaries, benefits, building maintenance, insurance, food, transportation, etc. grow at a much higher rate we are forced to have to do more with less. We cannot add staff when we know that in a year or two we would need to cut because we will have run through our excess money. This is why even the small olive branch of allowing us to shift money from categorical accounts into our flex accounts doesn’t benefit many districts and definitely will not allow us to have sustained salary increases Continuing to talk about how we as districts cannot legally settle contract negotiations for less than a 3% increase yet receive less than this in SSA when inflation is more than triple the SSA amount is not something that I feel will change your minds, irregardless of the fact that the state is sitting on a near 2 billion dollar surplus.

I am going to attempt to stay away from all of the really big talking points and try to dig into some of my biggest concerns. Before doing this though, I want to truly express my desire to work with you and honestly support this bill for you, but I have caveats. I will proudly express support for this ESA bill if any school that accepts ESA payments has to follow the same public scrutiny for spending and has to follow the same rules that guide and govern public schools with the same oversight. Not that teachers are all certified and that they are accredited. That bar is too low. Require them to have a publicly elected school board, accept all children, and have to provide all the same levels of servicing that public schools do. If this can be added to the bill I will be the first in line to stand with you and would love to be in the office when the bill is signed. I do not see this happening though because this would essentially make a private school public and the exclusivity would diminish.

For talking points, I’ll attempt to ask questions and then provide some reasons as to why I am asking.

How will this additional funding be paid for?

There are currently 36,535 students in private schools in Iowa (roughly 2% of Iowa’s students). In year one it is estimated that this bill would provide ESA’s for 14068 students. This comes with a price tag of an additional $106.9 million in tax dollar expenditures. The following year the number of students that are estimated to receive this grows to 20,063 and would cost $156.2 million. The third year this goes to all students in private schools and jumps to 40,052 students in estimation and a cost of $313.9 million. The following year the estimation grows to 43,000 students served in private schooling with a cost of $341 million. In total almost $1 billion dollars of taxpayer money will be going towards students in non-public schools. Coincidentally by year three of this bill the recently passed flat tax will be in full implementation and this is estimated to decrease state revenue by $2 billion annually. Where is the money going to come from when the budget surplus is wiped out?

When schools utilize the method of educating students through economies of scale, how does this bill not directly impact school funding and what they can provide?

If 5 students leave a district, over $35000 leaves with them. This is the cost of a first year teacher’s salary and districts will be forced to make cuts which will reduce course offerings and increase class sizes. Another way to look at this is while the state spends over 50% of its annual budget on public schooling, it is also a program that serves the most Iowa citizens. 93% of the students in Iowa are served by public schools. If we do a comparison, increasing SSA by 2.5 % will provide an additional $83 million to educate 93% of the state’s students where the ESA program will send $106 million to private schools to serve 2% of the state’s students.

Where do you feel that public schools could be with an additional billion dollars in funding over 4 years?

I feel the gap and high need areas that we constantly hear need more help could be addressed. We could work to address the teacher shortage, provide more mental health counseling within schools, and increase the ability to hire more staff that specialize in serving our students that struggle the most just to name a few things.

How does this bill provide a true option for most of Iowa’s students?

In Iowa, 41 counties do not have a private school. There are even more school districts that do not have a private school within their boundaries. This doesn’t provide more choice for any of those students in rural areas than they already have. When it comes to students in less rural areas that may have access to a private school, does the fact that parents can not use any of the ESA to pay for transportation allow them to truly have a choice? Even with open enrollment, as long as the parent can get the student to be within the district the non-resident district can transport (I also see that there is a bill currently that is seeking to eliminate the need to seek approval from a resident district to transport, basically taking borders away from school districts). When part of the promotion of the bill is to say that students of lower socioeconomic status, those with the wrong zip code, or those that need a different setting need choice, how will this bill provide them with more choice? In our zip code there isn’t another choice unless the student open-enrolls to another district which is already provided under Iowa law. We do howereve serve students that have English Language Learning goals, Individualized Education Plans, are within the LBGTQIA+ community, and other areas that can cause denial of admission to private schools. Where is their choice? It is my hope that with more adequate funding from the state we would be able to provide them more choice and opportunities within the walls of their public school.

If you were to poll your constituents and there was overwhelming opposition to this bill, would you vote against it?

I have continued to see poll after poll that shows anywhere between 60%-80% of Iowans oppose this bill. As elected leaders, you are tasked with leading for the people and representing all of those within your districts (even those that didn’t vote for you). This isn’t a republican vs. democrat issue and Iowans have continued to express this by showing that regardless of party line, the vast majority of Iowans do not support this bill or providing any funding to private schools, and especially without checks and balances attached that won’t cost additional tax payer money in acquiring third party vendors to do so (I don’t believe the Department of Education will be able to take on this project without going with a third party contractor to do so).

What happens to the money if a student decides to return to public school, switch private schools mid year, or are kicked out of the private school of their choice?

There is nothing in this bill that ensures that the money follows the student. Hypothetical speaking, if a student were to receive an ESA, they can pay for their tuition in full for that year. If that tuition takes all of the ESA and the student is kicked out of school prior to count day, does that money need to be returned to the general fund? There is nothing in the bill that spells this out. Regardless of whether the money is returned, if a student is kicked out and enrolls prior to count day will the public school get funding for that student too? In other words, does the private school get the ESA and the public school get the funding provided based on count and the taxpayers pay for the same student two different times? If the student changes schools after the count date, does the public school district have the ability to bill back the private school for services like we do for open enrollment currently? None of this is addressed in this bill and all of it is incredibly concerning when we talk about the money belonging to the student and not the institution.

Iowa already spends a significant amount of money each year on nonpublic schools. (in 2017-18, $37.1 million was spent) Will this continue to happen or will Iowa reallocate these funds into the ESA program?

Since public schools already work with many private schools to help to provide services such as transportation, title 1 interventions, ELL services, and even special education services at different times, will public schools need to continue to do this, or can this full burden fall back to the non-public schools since they will now be receiving funding?

Do you feel as though the current oversight is enough? If so, could you allow public schools to function the same way as private schools?

Currently public schools must take EVERY student. Even if we have students that we determine to be safety risks or that we cannot serve because we lack resources, we are still tasked with finding them placements and then paying for them. Private schools do not need to do this. We also have many oversight measures put in place. If private schools are not required to follow the same requirements, can we drop all requirements for the public schools as well to establish a truly equal playing field. This would provide the same choices to public school districts as private school districts, and uniformly provide the ultimate choice to parents. I want to stress I do not support this measure as I philosophically disagree with the premise of excluding anyone from a public school! It is every student’s right to an education and public schools provide for that right with no strings attached.

Will private schools be required to do all the same things that public schools need to do in regards to reporting and any new legislation in regards to parent transparency?

If any transparency bills pass, will schools that receive funding from ESA’s be required to follow all of those requirements and regulations, while also facing the same consequences to teachers, administrators, or the district as a whole? For example, if the bill that is looking at banning the instruction of SEL (social emotional learning) practices is passed, will private schools be able to teach any curriculums that are CASEL approved?

I feel as though I have probably given you all enough to chew on. I want to stress that while my opposition to this bill is clear based on the above comments and questions, I really want to engage in a conversation about this bill further! I never want to leave this state. I want to see my grandkids being raised in this amazing state. I fear though that with policies like this, that are not fully vetted or researched, that a decision will be made that we may never be able to walk back, or that the harm will be significant enough that it could take decades for our students to recover from.

We need to work together as citizens and citizen leaders. I was incredibly discouraged last year when I was talking with one of you and you expressed fear in retaliation from those within your party if you were to stand up to them or say something that could offend them. That they may then not help to pass any of your bills or stall some of the work that you were working hard on for your constituents. This broke my heart because this is what is inherently wrong with our system as it stands. Being a leader is tough. Making tough decisions is never easy. I just hope that on this issue you listen to ALL of the people you represent. If you want to know, ask. Hold a town hall meeting in your district and see what people are saying. Open this up to everyone. I would happily offer the space to do so in our schools.

With that said, I would also like to personally invite each of you to come and visit our amazing district. Our students would be thrilled to meet their representatives. We would also love to be able to show you what we do day in and day out to educate the future of our state, some of which may be ones to fill the very shoes that you have now and represent their communities someday in the statehouse.

Thank you for your time and I hope we can grab a coffee and have a great discussion about education in our state.

Sincerely,

Caleb Bonjour