Librarians. Custodians. Middle and high school teachers.

When Iowa school administrators have to cut their budgets, they hope they can delay getting some new textbooks, or require fewer professional development classes for staff.

But when there’s nothing else to cut from the general fund anymore, it has to get a little more personal… and difficult.

It’s jobs—it’s PEOPLE—that have to be eliminated. That’s what’s happening in Waterloo Community Schools. Because of what the superintendent calls “a perfect storm,” there are 60 people whose jobs will be cut this coming school year.

✏️: Salina Heller

Will the pendulum swing back in 2026?

Before a Davenport stop on his Fight Oligarchy tour, US Sen. Bernie Sanders hosted an invite-only immigration forum with Escucha Mi Voz, a local immigration advocacy group, and the families of Iowans deported by ICE.

Father Guillermo Treviño is a Catholic priest from West Liberty and the godfather of Pascual Pedro Pedro, a 20 year-old Iowan who was detained at an immigration court hearing. He said the attention brought by a national figure like Sanders is a huge help in the fight to bring Pedro Pedro home.

On Friday, US Sen. Bernie Sanders told a crowd at an immigration forum in West Liberty that undocumented people were President Donald Trump’s favorite scapegoat.

He called President Trump a demagogue and detailed the ways the current administration criminalizes undocumented immigrants to distract from the real thieves: billionaires.