The Greene County School Board recently selected priorities from the Iowa Association of School Boards (IASB) for the 2020 Legislative session.

School Board President Dr. Mark Peters says every year IASB members select priorities that the state-wide organization will lobby for during the following year’s legislative session. The priorities that the Board approved earlier this summer include: funding for dropout/at-risk youth, mental health, incentives for sharing and reorganization and supplemental state aid growth. Peters describes why the Board chose mental health as one of its priorities.

“So what we really want the legislature to do is maybe come up with some ways of getting more funding or more programs to address mental health. Because quite honestly, in the last 20-30 years we’ve ignored mental health as society as a whole. Our children are not reaping the benefits of what we haven’t done, that’s for sure. Because the teachers, they come up against so many obstacles in the classroom, that it makes it hard to teach. We really need to focus on mental health, not just in our schools, but in society as a whole as we go forward.”

Peters adds the District has started to address mental health. Last school year, the District added an elementary school counselor and formed a district-wide wellness committee. This school year, the District as hired a part-time nurse practitioner to meet with parents and students regarding mental health issues through video conferencing.