The Iowa legislative session is underway, and growing interest among some legislators in passing legislation to better protect teachers from in-school violence is a welcome development.
Our public school teachers need nurturing, positive classroom environments where they can teach without fear of violence. When teachers don’t feel safe, they can’t perform at their best, and students don’t get the education they deserve.
Why should the business community care? Teacher safety directly affects our state’s economic vitality. We must keep teachers in the profession so they don’t leave for careers with stronger workplace safety protections.
According to the Iowa State Education Association (ISEA), which represents Iowa’s public school teachers and education support professionals, more than 500 educator positions and more than 1,000 paraprofessional positions remain vacant statewide. These vacancies threaten the quality of education that prepares Iowa’s future workforce.
How do we protect our teachers?
Schools across the state should be required to collect consistent data detailing and tracking violence against teachers. Most Iowans know a friend or family member who teaches and has faced unnecessary and unacceptable in-school violence, yet consistent and reliable data remains elusive.
The state should enhance whistleblower protections for teachers who report violence and impose severe penalties on school administrators who fail to support educators reporting such incidents.
Students who repeatedly assault teachers must be removed from classrooms and placed in alternative learning environments. Teachers who experience violence or threats in the classroom deserve respect, empathy, additional mental and emotional support, and financial protections.
School districts that receive citations and fines from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for failing to protect teachers from violence and student outbursts should be required to publicly acknowledge the violations and detail steps they are taking to remedy the situation.
For example, the Iowa City Community School District received OSHA citations in 2019 and 2024 for failing to protect teachers from student violence at two different elementary schools but made little effort to inform the public.
Republicans dominate Iowa government, holding majorities in both the state Senate and House as well as the governor’s office. The ISEA has consequently had limited success with legislators, partly due to conflicts with Republican lawmakers and exacerbated by the union’s political contributions to Democrats.
The ISEA’s political approach may have even been detrimental to teachers.
Before this legislative session, the union released a 2026 “Bill of Rights” and legislative priorities. While we agree with most items listed, they largely amount to empty political rhetoric with little chance of passage.
We urge the ISEA to focus on teacher safety – something members would truly appreciate – instead of issuing laundry lists of political statements unlikely to succeed.
We encourage the ISEA and the business community to support legislation that protects teachers. It’s good for teachers and for the future of Iowa.
Editor’s note: The CEO of the Corridor Media Group, John Lohman, wrote a column in 2025 about the violence that his wife has experienced as a public school teacher. The column can be found on the CBJ’s website.
