The Iowa Legislative Session begins next Monday and one topic of notable interest will be about school vouchers.

District 24 Senator Jesse Green was disappointed that school vouchers didn’t pass through the Iowa House last year, after the Senate did so. The bill would take the state’s allocated per pupil funds and allow parents or guardians to choose to have their child educated in a private institution or be homeschooled. A portion of the per pupil funding would be compiled in a pool funds for the smaller and more rural districts to share.

Green tells Raccoon Valley Radio some of the Republican legislators that weren’t for school vouchers and who served in the House Education Committee saw Governor Kim Reynolds play a role in selecting another candidate during the primary, where Green believes most of those races Reynolds’ backed candidate defeated the incumbent. He points out that also due to redistricting, some other Republican House members were put in new districts with fellow Republican house members, and decided to retire instead of running for re-election.

“I could be off a few votes on this but it seemed like that we were about 15 votes shy of passing the school choice (bill) last year in the House. And I think between the retirements and the primaries, the talk is over in the House, they should have the support.”  

Green adds the House Speaker Pat Grassley has said that the school voucher bill could also go through the newly formed House Education Reform Committee. The next legislative session begins January 9th.