2021

Tuesday’s Council Bluffs School Board meeting devolved into yelling, a 15-minute recess, and a call to the police over the district’s decision to reimplement a mask requirement. From the beginning of the public comment session, the overwhelmingly anti-masking crowd shouted arguments against requiring students to wear masks and the situation escalated. Parents also complained about…

The road to justice and equity can be long and full of hardships; however, for Kameron Middlebrooks, that road became his passion and purpose in life. Kameron is the 3rd Vice President for the Des Moines Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and former branch president. The 32-year-old has…

The Sioux City Community School District discussed reinstating a mask mandate for all Sioux City school buildings and activities at its Monday evening meeting. Board members showed strong support for doing so. Board Vice President Monique Scarlett moved to reimplement a mask mandate and board member Taylor Goodvin seconded it immediately. However, in order to…

The Sioux City Community School District could be the first Iowa school district to offer rapid COVID-19 testing in its buildings. The only hindrance is approval to use federal emergency funding to buy those tests, according to District Communications Director Leslie Heying Heying said part of the discussion at Monday’s school board meeting will be…

The past is starting to catch up with an Arizona company whose traveling taco festivals have left a sour taste in the mouths of its attendees. Organizers in Wisconsin canceled the upcoming Madison Taco Festival citing complaints from other cities and media reports— including from Iowa Starting Line—about AZ Food Festivals LLC, the fly-by-night operation…

Across Iowa, schools are seeing and reporting rising cases of COVID-19 among their populations. How—and whether—schools notify parents about positive cases is left up to school districts to decide. So far, many are providing those notifications, but most are only giving broad information, like noting when there’s a positive case in a school building or…

A case in federal court has put pre-2015 rules for what waters qualify for protection under the Clean Water Act back into place. For now. Last week a federal judge in Arizona ruled that the Trump Administration’s Navigable Waters Protection Rule was too flawed to keep in place. The case was brought to Judge Rosemary…

Whitewater kayaking is growing increasingly popular in Iowa as parks dedicated to the recreational activity have started to sprout up. Chuck Ungs, a Linn County conservation education specialist, said the whitewater park in Manchester has been helpful for him during the pandemic. “We were all nervous about getting far from home,” he said. “And so…

A group of parents with children who have disabilities, backed by the American Civil Liberties Union, filed a lawsuit Friday to block and strike down Iowa’s law banning schools from requiring students and faculty to wear masks. The argument in the case is that students with disabilities are blocked from access to an equal education…