Bruce Lear lives in Sioux City and has been connected to Iowa’s public schools for 38 years. He taught for eleven years and represented educators as an Iowa State Education Association regional director for 27 years until retiring. 

As Republican presidential wannabes traipse across the countryside, offering 30-second solutions for complex problems, a more immediate election is looming. School board elections on November 7 will help determine whether our community school thrives, suffers, or dies.

Currently, Governor Kim Reynolds and a group of legislative lemmings are committed to creating a two-tiered school system in Iowa, separate and unequal, both funded with public dollars. One tier is used as a political punching bag, has new laws to cope with, accepts all students, and is chronically underfunded. The other tier has funding from a new voucher entitlement, can pick and choose who to accept, and has little to no accountability to taxpayers.

Bruce Lear lives in Sioux City and has been connected to Iowa’s public schools for 38 years. He taught for eleven years and represented educators as an Iowa State Education Association regional director for 27 years until retiring.

The butter used to sculpt the butter cow is in cold storage. In stores, back-to-school supplies are supplanted by Halloween. From the looks of Facebook, parents mostly won the first day photo battle and got the cherished shot of their kids holding a paper plate with their new grade announced boldly.

School has started.

Bruce Lear lives in Sioux City and has been connected to Iowa’s public schools for 38 years. He taught for eleven years and represented educators as an Iowa State Education Association regional director for 27 years until retiring.

In some families, there’s an unwritten rule. You may fight within the family, but if someone from the outside attacks, you unite to defend. Well, the education family is under attack. It’s time for all parts of the family—school boards, administrators, teachers, staff, and substitutes—to circle the wagons to protect the profession and our students.

I know a lot of educators hate politics and they hate the “us-vs-them mentality.” But teachers who’ve taught more than a couple of years realize the profession is being torn apart by the big school board in Des Moines, called the Iowa legislature. 

Bruce Lear lives in Sioux City and has been connected to Iowa’s public schools for 38 years. He taught for eleven years and represented educators as an Iowa State Education Association regional director for 27 years until retiring. He took the photo above of Shellsburg School (now Vinton-Shellsburg).

Teachers have earned appreciation for more than a week in May or during tragedies like school shootings or a pandemic. They really do train all other professions.  

People who boast about pulling themselves up with their bootstraps have short memories. If I tried to pull myself up with my own bootstraps, they would have broken, and my boots would have remained firmly on the floor. No, in my tiny school in my tiny town, I had some dedicated motivators called teachers.

Bruce Lear lives in Sioux City and has been connected to Iowa’s public schools for 38 years. He taught for eleven years and represented educators as an Iowa State Education Association regional director for 27 years until retiring.

Most teaching happens in a classroom with only students in attendance. Occasionally, a visitor drops by, but that’s rare. However, teachers who direct choirs or bands, or coach or advise activities, have large public audiences chock full of experts ready to second-guess.

I was a high school English teacher and adviser for the yearbook and student newspaper. While it might differ from the pressure felt when a championship game was on the line, it had public pressure. The difference was the boo-birds weren’t in the bleachers, they were on the phone and email.

Bruce Lear lives in Sioux City and has been connected to Iowa’s public schools for 38 years. He taught for eleven years and represented educators as an Iowa State Education Association regional director for 27 years until retiring. Bruce took the photo above, of a Branson attraction that’s not what it seems.

We’d been driving a few hours. The warning signs were flashing, backs aching, bladders full. Time to stop. We were on an anniversary trip to Branson, Missouri. Branson is the Las Vegas of the Ozarks. But think Vegas sans gambling, and with an added “heapin helpin” of southern, family, values.

Just before Branson, we saw a huge sign screaming “Discount Show Tickets Here.” My wife craves discounts, and those warning signs persisted. We stopped.

Little did we know as we stepped from the car to the building, we were entering THE TIME-SHARE ZONE. In the time-share zone, nothing is what it seems, and everything is too good to be true.