Iowa City school district told to change diversity policy or risk loss of lunch funding

IOWA CITY, Iowa—The Iowa City Community School District and its officials could face serious consequences if they fail to amend or rescind the district's diversity policy, officials with the Iowa Department of Education said Wednesday.

The district could lose federal lunch program dollars if it fails to make necessary changes spelled out in a letter the district received last week, said Jeff Berger, deputy director of the Department of Education's Division of School Finance and Support Services.

He said individual district officials, according to federal law, also could be held liable for misusing confidential information, leading to possible jail time, financial penalties or ethics violations.

"That's one of the reasons we're really trying to nudge this in a good direction, because it only gets worse if we keep going down this direction," he said.

The Department of Education told the district in a letter last week that it cannot implement its diversity policy as written, because portions of the policy do not comply with the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act. The letter reads that the district must take action to correct the policy.