There has been a lot of legislation talked about during the 2022 Iowa Legislative Session and one of those has surrounded transparency in the classroom.

Iowa House Representative for District 19 Carter Nordman says when it comes to classroom transparency the House passed House File 2577 which aims to increase parents’ access to information that is being taught to their students in the classroom.

“School districts and teachers would be required to post their syllabus and textbooks and other related core materials and list of instructional materials to an online portal where parents could access that. The big thing to note here is that most teachers already use an online platform and these requirements are very easy to meet.”

Nordman tells Raccoon Valley Radio that school districts that don’t have an online classroom management platform would have until July 1st 2024 to do so. Nordman says teachers could also update their postings throughout the year. 

“This is just another way of ensuring that parents have a seat at the table, that parents have a voice in their child’s education and quite frankly just making it transparent. We wanted to make sure that this was a system that teachers already use and wasn’t going to be extremely burdensome on them but also ensuring that parents have full access to knowing what their students are being taught in the classroom.”

House File 2577 was passed by the Iowa House on March 29th. For a full look at the potential legislation you can go here