Last fall, the Pella School Board invited state lawmakers to the annual legislative roundtable work session Monday evening.

At the October 28th session, the board had a specific request for Senator Ken Rozenboom and Representative Barb Kniff McCulla, with presentations by teachers and staff members. The discussion centered around student mental health and the challenges the district faces.

The request from the Pella School Board to the lawmakers is for school districts to have additional funding to provide one mental health therapist for 1,000 students total. That individual(s) would be employed by the schools, can meet with students at a private location, and could be available to public and private schools.

In a follow-up this week, Rozenboom said he had a follow-up discussion with Superintendent Greg Ebeling and Board President Elisa Klahsen. He told KNIA/KRLS News he doesn’t believe the specific request by the board would have much of a chance of passing this session, but did say he would look into other options. Rozenboom also asked about administrative costs in the district, and if those could instead be shifted toward hiring more mental health professionals.

“I challenged them to maybe look at their administrative costs — if it was that big an issue, and as they said their number one issue, then perhaps maybe we should look at reducing some other administrative costs in the schools to prioritize mental health concerns. I did also promise to meet with them at a subsequent meeting, once we had a chance to link it through and talk it over, I did talk to our staff and we had a couple ideas on how we might responded to that.

“I did meet with the superintendent and board president a few weeks later to discuss it. I’m certainly reluctant to add another mandate and mandatory cost to the schools across the board, that would cost Iowa taxpayers another $40 to $50 million a year. So we’re really loggerheads on that, and I don’t see how we could fulfill that request.”

Hear more with Rozenboom on In Touch with South Central Iowa.