Gazette Daily News Podcast, August 4
This is Zack Kucharski with The
Gazette digital news desk and I'm here with your update for Thursday, August 4th.
A quick check of the weather from the
National Weather Service: Sunny, with a high near 85. Northeast wind 5 to 10 mph.
Tonight: Mostly clear, low around 64 and light winds.
Now to what’s making news:
The closure and cleanup at the Cedar Rapids downtown library is expected
to last into September, library officials announced Wednesday. The closure
comes after a small July 27 fire in a light fixture in the library commons
area. Smoke soot is being cleaned-up throughout the interior of the 100,000
square-foot building.
The library is
still working through the investigation and insurance claims, library director
Dara Schmidt said Wednesday. All items in the library -- including the carpet —
will be wiped down and cleaned while the facility is closed.
Reopening the
lobby area for hold pickups is her next priority during the library’s temporary
closure. The library extended book due dates and holds, but patrons still can
return materials to Hiawatha and Marion Libraries or one of the book drops at
metro-area Hy-Vee stores instead.
Schmidt said the
library’s 82 employees have been reassigned to work in the west-side Ladd
Library, outdoor and vehicle outreach programs and at a cooling and computer
center located across the street at Waypoint.
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A parents group is suing the Linn-Mar Community School District,
superintendent and board members over its new policies to protect transgender
students from discrimination. The lawsuit asserts that the policy violates parents’
rights to consent and students’ rights to express a different opinion.
Parents Defending
Education is identified in the lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court as
a grassroots organization that includes “parents, students and other concerned
citizens” with a mission to prevent the “politicization of K-12 education.”
The group
contends the Linn-Mar policy passed in April allows children to make
fundamentally important decisions about gender identity without parental
involvement and hide those decisions from their parents.
According to the
30-page petition, the parents group filed it to “protect parents’ rights to
raise their children and students’ rights to freedom of expression.”
Linn-Mar district officials didn’t immediately respond to an email and
phone message seeking comment.
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. Reflecting the Cedar Rapids school board’s decision to remove police
from the city’s middle schools, the Cedar Rapids Police Department has proposed
additional changes to the agreement for school resource officers that account
for the reduction from seven to five officers.
With the start of
the 2022-23 school year fast approaching, the Cedar Rapids City Council and
school board have yet to approve the same contract outlining terms of the
program that will station police officers this year at Kennedy, Washington,
Jefferson and Metro high schools and Polk Alternative Education Center, but
take them out of Cedar Rapids middle schools.
While Cedar Rapids Police Chief Wayne Jerman said he accepts the
district’s decision to pull SROs from the middle school, it said it’s not
logical to expect the five remaining officers to do the work that seven did
previously.
The city said that diversion outcomes will be less likely to
happen at junior highs without SROs, Jerman said. Instead, patrol officers, who
have different training experience and expertise than the SROs have.
Another change
clarifies that school resource officers shall assist the district with
facilitating lockdown drills specifically at school buildings staffed with
school resource officers instead of at all school buildings twice per year.
The two sides still don’t have a finalized agreement, with the
start of the school year about three weeks away. The issue will come up on
Tuesday’s city council agenda. School district officials would not say whether
the matter will be placed on Monday’s school board meeting.
