Team ISEA Hosts Lobby Day at the State Capitol

On Tuesday, February 20th, Team ISEA hosted a Lobby Day at the state Capitol for the first time in a number of years. Over 100 ISEA members from across the state gathered in Des Moines to meet with their state legislators under the golden dome of the state Captiol.

A briefing was held at the Wallace state office building prior to our visit to the Capitol where we heard from ISEA lobbyist Brad Hudson and Jon Studer, then from legislative leaders state Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal and Speaker of the House Pat Murphy.

Majority Leader Gronstal (pictured at left) shared with Team ISEA members his goals for moving Iowa education forward. The goals included moving Iowa teacher's salaries from 41st in the nation to 25th; providing a living wage for Education Support Professionals; increasing salaries for Community College instructors; including AEA professionals in the Teacher Quaility Law; and making tuition at our Regent's institutions more affordable.


Speaker of the Iowa House Pat Murphy (pictured at right) shared his vision for the session next with Team ISEA. Speaker Murphy not only repeated the priorities Senator Gronstal set forth, but gave all the credit to Senator Gronstal for adding additional dollars to last year's Community College budget increase.


When our legislative briefing finished, Team ISEA members had a short walk to the state Captiol where we had lunch with our state legislators. One of the first people I ran into was state Representative Phil Wise, a retired teacher and a member of ISEA-R, from Keokuk. When I served in the Iowa House ('93-96), Representative Wise (pictured at left with me) was one of my best pals.

Sharing lunch and conversation with state Representative Ro Foege, a retired AEA professional and ISEA member, are Suzette Kragenbrink (center) president of the Mount Vernon EA and Kristi Keast (at right) Mount Vernon EA and chair of ISEA's Building Support for Public Education committee.

Senator Dennis Black (on the left) of Grinnell visits with Team ISEA leader Bill Perrenoud, president of the Newton EA and Mayor of Lambs Grove over lunch.

Siouxland UniServ Unit members had a chance to visit with state Senator Steve Warnstadt. Pictured here (from left to right) Vince Cox, Sioux City EA; Leslie Dake, Sioux City ESPA; Senator Warnstadt; Donna Walsh, Sioux City EA president; and Gayle Jeffers, Sioux City EA and NEA Board of Directors.

Rich Feilmeier, Prairie Valley AEA EA, gave me one of the badges his daughter had made for their EA membership drive. The badge says, "Have a Say....join ISEA!" Thanks, Rich for your leadership on Team ISEA!

Following lunch, Team ISEA members had the opportunity to visit with their own legislators before gathering in the Legislative Dining Room to hear from legislative leaders. Representative Cindy Winckler, co-chair of the joint House-Senate Budget Sub-Committee on Education Appropriations was first to address our group. Representative Winckler is a former teacher, now on the professional staff of AEA 9 (and a member of ISEA!) is pictured at the right.

ISEA Lobbyist Brad Hudson thanks Team ISEA members for their effort in electing "Friends of Education" in the fall election, but reminds them it is our responsibility to continually stay in touch with our legislators.

Next on our afternoon's agenda was a meeting with Governor Chet Culver. Team ISEA members gathered in the Kennedy Conference Center in anticipation of hearing from one of our own, a former High School Government teacher, Governor Chet Culver.

Governor Culver spoke briefly to Team ISEA members and staff gathered about his commitment to bring Iowa's teacher's salaries to at least 25th in the nation. Governor Culver said we need to pay Iowa educators for the work they are already doing. He acknowledged that Iowa's students rank in the top 10 in all measures of educational assessments. He was able to greet many of our members with a handshake or pose for a photo before taking off for his daughter's parent-teacher conference.

The last group of legislative leaders that we heard from were state Senator Frank Wood (seated on left), a principal at North Scott High School and co-chair of the Education Appropriations Budget Sub-Committee; and state Representative Roger Wendt, a retired Middle School principal in Sioux City and chair of the House Education Committee. How lucky Iowa is to have such capable legislative leaders!

Team ISEA leaders represented us well in their Lobby Day on Tuesday. As they are the professionals in their classrooms and workplace, they too were most professional in representing our membership as they visited with state legislators. They spoke with passion about the issues that mean the most to us--those impacting our profession and the students we work with every day!