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Parent tells board a communication directive limited her access to staff and urges clearer policies
Summary
A parent, Molly Regala, told the Indianola Community School District board a November communication directive restricted her contact with high school staff beyond an IEP dispute and lacked clear scope, duration, review or appeal procedures; she urged the board to adopt policy safeguards to protect parental participation and guard against retaliatory effects.
Molly Regala, a parent of two students at Indianola Senior High School who said both have individualized education programs, told the board that a November communication directive issued after an ongoing IEP dispute effectively limited her ability to contact high school staff and later extended to matters involving her son who was not part of the dispute. "When directives affecting parent communication are implemented without clearly defined scope, duration, review, or appeal that raises governance and board oversight concerns," Regala said.
Regala said she asked the board on February 19 to consider reviewing the directive in closed session; the board president declined on March 6 and directed the matter to administration under board policy 2110.08 and policy 213.01. Regala told the board she followed the administrative path but was repeatedly denied clear clarification about which staff the restriction covered and whether she could be copied on administrative communications. "Those requests did not result in a clear explanation of the directive scope," she said, adding that lack of clarity made it difficult to know whether responses reflected the views of the responsible educator or an administrative filtering.
She cited board policy 505.08 (and regulation 505.08-R) on parent and family engagement and regulation 102-R on equal educational opportunity grievance procedures and warned the timing and breadth of the directive — issued shortly after a state complaint — could be perceived as retaliatory. "When governance gaps combined with administrative discretion intersect with federally protected parent participation rights, they tend to attract scrutiny from outside oversight bodies," she said, urging the board to establish written standards for scope, proportionality and review.
Board members acknowledged the concern and noted the request had been routed to administration; the board did not take formal action on the matter at this meeting. Regala offered to meet individually with board members to provide additional context.
The record shows Regala requested a board review and raised specific questions about policy safeguards and appeals; the district response directed the issue back to administration under existing board policies as noted above.
