One Iowa lawmaker is seeing some bills come to light in a sub-committee in the Senate.

District 24 Senator Jesse Green (R-Boone) says Senate Study Bill 3092 allows school boards to hire chaplains to provide services and their skills within the district. He argues that it isn’t a separation of church and state because lots of other governmental entities utilize chaplains, including the Iowa National Guard and law enforcement, and it will help with workforce shortages in schools as well.

“Chaplains provide a very good service and I think in this time where we have so many mental health issues,and deep societal issues, I think that could be just the ticket for some of the schools to help some of these kids that are struggling within these schools.”

Green notes another bill, Senate Fie 2003, is the Immunization Exemption Notification. He tells Raccoon Valley Radio the legislation aims to make the vaccination exemption more transparent and readily available to parents, for medical and religious reasons, among others; to opt out of the required immunizations to attend a public school.

“And I think this will help the schools on some of their workload. It will help some of these conversations to make them a little more healthy for the parents, and just make the parents more informed.”  

Green adds this bill does not add additional exemptions, but makes it more clear of the ones that currently exist in Iowa Code section 139a, sub-section 8. Both bills went through the Senate Education sub-committees.