tr?id=&ev=PageView&noscript=
Amie bio
Amie Rivers
Amie Rivers is Starting Line's community editor, labor reporter and newsletter snarker-in-chief. Previously, she was an award-winning journalist at the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier; now, she very much enjoys making TikToks and memes. Send all story tips and pet photos to [email protected] and sign up for our newsletter here.

WATCH: Why Iowa public schools are required to let private school kids play sports

“Survival mode.”

That’s what Rep. Heather Matson says Iowa’s public school districts are operating in these days.

And in just a couple of short months, there will be another issue added to the growing list of Republican moves that are hurting the state's more than 300 public school districts.

Besides being underfunded, not having teacher candidates to hire, and a voucher system that diverts public funds from public schools to private, the new trouble will be a requirement for public schools to let private school students play in their sports programs.

Matson says she worries about “the possible fiscal and logistical implications.”

Amie Rivers - Iowa Starting Line

WATCH: Iowa’s maternal health care crisis, explained

Iowa is in a maternal health crisis.

With one of the most restrictive abortion policies in the country since the overturning of Roe v. Wade (three years ago this week), clinics and hospitals are having a hard time recruiting OB-GYNs.

Iowa’s year-old statewide abortion ban prohibits most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, before many women even know they’re pregnant.

Dr. Karla Solheim reflects on Iowa’s maternal health care scene since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision that overturned the decades-long protections for women that were secured from Roe v. Wade.

Amie Rivers - Iowa Starting Line
BLOCKED
BLOCKED