The Sioux City School Board has slated three community meetings in order to compile key input from people, as they carry out hiring a new school district superintendent.
Superintendent Rod Earleywine will retire in June 2025 after three years in the chief executive role of the Sioux City School District.
The community input sessions will be held at the three high schools, and all will begin at 6 p.m.The first will be held at East High School on Monday, October 14, and the other two will be at West and North high schools on Tuesday.
People are being asked to share what leadership styles and management traits they most like in a superintendent. People can also weigh in online at the website www.siouxcityschools.org.
The board is using the GR Recruiting search firm in aiming to hire a new superintendent for the district with 14,500 students by early 2025, with July 1 as the first day to work in that role for Earleywine’s successor.
*Another search for a superintendent is underway in the Okoboji School District.
The school board on Wednesday got an update from their search firm, Grundmeyer Leadership Services, according to Explore Okoboji News.
Board President Juli Johnson said they reviewed results of a survey of 126 community members. The new superintendent will succeed Todd Abrahamson who will be retiring at the end of the current school year.
*Additionally, Iowa is joining 19 other states and nursing home industry groups in suing the federal government over a rule that would set new minimum staffing requirements in nursing homes.
Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird is co-leading the lawsuit, along with Kansas and South Carolina, against the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
The lawsuit claims a new minimum staffing rule proposed by the Biden administration exceeds the authority of CMS. Iowa’s Bird and others contend that will drive many nursing homes out of business, leaving residents with nowhere to go.
CMS finalized the rule in April. The Biden administration created the new standard in response to safety concerns in nursing homes stemming from inadequate staffing.
The new standards are set to be phased in over the course of three years and will include exemptions for facilities in areas facing severe shortages of nurses.
*In other news, even as the South Dakota economy has flourished in the post-pandemic era, a new state fiscal analysis contains findings that economists warn may indicate that economic growth is slowing down.
This information comes from South Dakota News Watch.
The August report from the Governor’s Council of Economic Advisors showed that South Dakota experienced strong growth in housing, employment, income, population growth and gross domestic production. The economy was boosted in large part by billions in federal pandemic stimulus dollars that flowed into the state in 2020-2023.
But the report’s most recent data from 2024 shows the state has seen reduced revenue growth, lower growth in GDP and a somewhat stark drop in farm income that has ripple effects across the entire state economy.
Three economists all expressed concern over the huge gap between the roughly 30,000 open jobs and the limited number of unemployed people to fill them.
Despite the new warning signs, the economists agree South Dakota remains in a strong position financially. Unless recent negative blips become patterns, the state may see slower growth, but is unlikely to enter a recession or other economic crisis.