A wide-ranging school choice bill, House File 2754, signed today by Governor Kim Reynolds significantly expands Iowa’s charter school framework and modifies homeschooling regulations in ways that will have direct fiscal, operational, and compliance implications for public school districts. Some key changes under the bill are explained below.

• Expansion of Charter School Funding and Authority

  One feature of the legislation is the extension of Teacher Salary Supplement (TSS) funding to charter schools. Under current law, TSS dollars are directed exclusively to public school districts to support teacher compensation. This bill will redirect approximately $1.3 million annually to charter schools based on enrollment counts, aligning charter schools more closely with district-level funding mechanisms. The bill also expands charter school infrastructure in several ways, including allowing the University of Northern Iowa to authorize new charter schools, in addition to existing authorizers. Charter school students will also gain expanded access to participate in extracurricular activities in their resident public school districts. The legislation also requires public school districts to provide driver education services to charter school students residing within district boundaries, with charter schools responsible for reimbursing costs.

• Homeschooling and Independent Instruction Changes

  The bill makes significant changes to Iowa’s independent private instruction framework. Most notably, it removes the existing cap on the number of unrelated students a homeschooling provider may teach and eliminates the prohibition on charging tuition or fees. These changes will allow families or individuals to operate small, tuition-based instructional settings outside of traditional regulatory structures. 

"When you trust parents, support educators and invest in students outcomes improve, and that’s exactly what we’re doing."

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