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Coming up on ����vlog 8 news close up, we break down Trump's new tariffs, what they mean for Iowa farmers and the state's ag economy, and egg prices keep going up and they're not expected to come down anytime soon. How that's impacting Iowa producers, restaurants, and your grocery bill, and reimagining education without recreating the wheel, how Des Moines schools are responding to *** decline in enrollment. This is Iowa's news leader. This is ����vlog 8 News close up. Good morning and thank you for joining us for ����vlog 8 News close up. I'm chief political reporter Amanda Rucker. Last weekend, President Donald Trump announced tariffs of up to 25% on imports from Canada and Mexico and 10% on imports from China. The three countries are the United States' largest trading partners. Trump. Temporarily suspend the tariffs on Canada and Mexico for at least one month after ongoing negotiations about border security. So *** tariff is essentially *** tax on goods imported from abroad. They're usually paid by the importer and the extra costs are generally passed on to the consumer. Trump has said the 10% tariffs on all Chinese goods are because China is not doing enough to stem the flow of drugs like. From coming into the US in retaliation, China has ordered 10 to 15% tariffs on *** number of American imports. Now, according to the American Farm Bureau, together, Canada, Mexico, and China account for half of all American agricultural exports. Just last year, the Bureau said the US sold more than $30 billion in farm products to Mexico, $29 billion dollars to Canada, and. $6 billion to China. *** report last June found that about 22% of Iowa's economy, or $53.1 billion is tied to agriculture. So is one out of every 5 jobs in Iowa, something that people here in the state care *** lot about. Jedd Hart is an agriculture economist with Iowa State University Extension and Outreach. Chad, thanks for joining us this morning. It's my pleasure to be with you. So Chad, there is *** lot of uncertainty on what this could mean for Iowa's agriculture sector for farmers who want *** little bit of clarity, you know, what could tariffs mean for, uh, price of corn, the price of soybeans? Well, as you mentioned, tariffs are import taxes, so the tariffs that we put on here in the US are not the tariffs that do damage necessarily to US farmers. It's the retaliatory tariffs that we see coming from ***. *** China, *** Canada or Mexico, and they typically are targeted at agricultural products because the tariffs have to be pointed at something that if you will we would export to that other country and so if we think back to President Trump's first term when tariffs were put in place we did see significant damage from that. What it happens is. It drives down the prices that our farmers see for their crop crops and livestock, and that puts them in worse financial shape as we move forward. And in fact, if we think back to President Trump's first term, he had to set up government support programs to assist farmers through that difficult financial time. Is there anything that you know, Iowa farmers learned from that first term that they may be thinking about preparing for, you know, as they're thinking about the possibility of retaliatory tariffs? Well, I think they now know sort of how the tariff game for lack of *** better term, is played amongst countries that you do tend to see one country move, the other country respond, and farmers have figured out that they are *** pressure point when it comes to how other countries approach the US with tariffs. The reason that is is because when you think about what what the US exports to the rest of the world, agriculture is *** major component of that. Therefore we become the natural target for when those other countries retaliate, it's gonna be the farmers that feel it but also I think farmers are sort of expecting or looking for the federal government. That if we're going to put tariffs in place that maybe there's some support mechanisms that will come down the line to help farmers given the financial situation. We know the tariffs uh for uh Canada and Mexico are on pause, but there are some retaliatory uh tariffs from China right now that have been levied. Is that currently having an impact on Iowa's agriculture? In this case, uh, indirectly I'm gonna say when you're looking at directly on our corn or soybeans or beef or pork, the answer is no. China chose not to target any direct agricultural commodity. That said, they did target agricultural machinery, so companies like John Deere are now facing increased tariffs looking into the Chinese market and China also held out the possibility of escalating changing the product mix that they target with tariffs in the future. We know that uh there's been *** downturn lately in the in the economy. Does that, what does that mean for just how much gloomier things could get financially, uh, you know, with the threat of *** trade war looming? Well, I, I think when you're looking at agriculture, I've got to get back *** couple of years. If we go back to say 2021, 2022, we were looking at agriculture sort of in *** golden era, um, record net farm income across the country. It's *** very strong agricultural economy then. Since then, we've seen it slide and, and we've seen some fairly significant reductions in farm incomes across the nation. Now, as we look, we're around our 20 year average in terms of net farm income, but it feels so much worse because. Revenues have fallen, but costs have remained high and so that has put the financial squeeze on farmers and now you're talking about the possibility of tariffs squeezing even harder on their financial markets. Another thing I'm hearing from farmers is, you know. Does this mean for my inputs, you know, things like feed, fertilizer, the price of machinery, availability of machinery, is there any, uh, you know, estimate that you have on what, uh, retaliatory tariffs could mean for impact on inputs? We really can't put *** strong, um. Estimate out there yet just because we don't know the full scale of how these tariffs will be implemented across different countries uh what we can say is that yeah as we look at places like. Uh, Canada and Mexico and the possibility for those tariffs there we do know those will increase input costs to farmers, especially from like Canada. The worry would be on fertilizer. We tend to import about 75% of all the potash we use to fertilize our farm fields when it comes to agricultural machinery, *** lot of parts are made in both Canada and Mexico, in fact. You know, you may have heard that around the automobile industry. It's also true within the *** machinery industry that we rely upon that cross-border trade with our North American partners to basically build *** lot of the machinery we use throughout the land. Well, we know there's *** lot of uncertainty out there, so thanks for giving us *** little bit more context. We appreciate it. Thank you. Well, we, when we come back, how bird flu is affecting producers here in Iowa and what that means for you while checking out at the grocery store and *** little later how the state's largest school district is responding to an ongoing decline in enrollment. Welcome back to Close Up. Bird flu is forcing farmers to slaughter millions of chickens *** month. That's caused the egg industry to face major challenges. Nearly half of all birds killed by the virus in 2024 were egg laying hen deaths that occurred in November and December, according to the USDA. The average price of *** dozen large grade *** eggs was $4.15 in December, up 50 cents from November and up more than 36% from last December. The US Ag Department predicts prices to rise. Another 20% before the year is over. Now restaurants are feeling the pinch. Last week, *** national restaurant chain, you may know Waffle House, added *** 50 cents surcharge for every egg in *** customer's order. They do expect it to be temporary, but they also acknowledged they're not sure when and if prices will come down. And just about *** week ago, 100,000 eggs were stolen from *** distribution trailer in Greencastle, Pennsylvania. The total loss to the company is estimated at around $40,000. Oop. Well, Chad Hart is an agriculture economist with Iowa State University Extension and Outreach. Chad, thanks for our conversation this morning. Uh, the price of eggs seems to be all that, you know, anyone can talk about on social media, at the dinner table, you know, can we drill down what is driving prices up? Sure, the biggest thing, as you mentioned, is bird flu and how it has definitely limited the supplies of eggs we have because it's limiting the supply of chickens that we have to lay those eggs, but at the same time. Too what we've had is really strong demand for eggs over the past couple of years. If you think about eggs, we typically have thought of those as *** very inexpensive form of protein that we tend to eat almost every day and so it's hard to adjust when you see that imbalance between the egg supplies that we have versus the demand that we've always had for eggs. You know this also comes at *** time where we're seeing *** change in administrations. There's been *** lot of conversation about how much does, you know, an executive branch, how much does the president have, you know, to do with the price of food, specifically now the price of eggs, you know, what is the impact that the president can have on something like this? In this case they have no impact whatsoever. This is truly up to the disease and how it moves through our industry at this time when you're looking at the bird flu out. We're dealing with now this has been probably the longest running bird flu outbreak we have ever seen. Typically the outbreaks are more like what we see with human flu where they're here for *** season and then it tends to go away. This one's basically been around since 2022 and that's why it's continuing to exert such strong impacts on our prices. So how much longer could consumers be feeling the pinch? Oh, we're gonna feel it for *** little while as you look at, we're still having the outbreak. In fact, as we look at the last week, we've seen an outbreak here within the state of Iowa that has hit, so we're going to be dealing with this for at least *** little while longer and as long as we see these waves of bird flu, we're gonna see basically waves within the egg pricing over time. And then turning to producers here in Iowa, how much does this impact them? It definitely impacts them because when you think about when they find one bird that has the flu, we have to eliminate the flock because it's basically fatal to the flock and so. That means that those farmers are facing severe financial hardship when they have to reduce that flock down and so there are government programs to help support them, but it doesn't fully cover the cost of the losses that are accumulating. Is there anything that farmers can do to take precautions to try to prevent, you know, outbreaks like this? Arguably they already are, uh, you know, the biggest thing they'll talk about is biosecurity that they're trying to keep the virus at bay as best they can. But the problem they're having is that this disease finds its way around that biosecurity. It spreads in *** variety of ways, and that makes it incredibly difficult to hold at bay. Well, Chad, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it. Thank you. Still to come on close up, we'll hear from the superintendent of Des Moines Public Schools on their broader rollout of the district's reimagining education plan, what it includes in the goals leaders, parents, and students hope to achieve with it. Welcome back to Close Up. I'm joined now by Doctor Ian Roberts. He's the superintendent of the state's largest school district, Des Moines Public Schools. Doctor Roberts, thanks for joining us today. Thanks for having me. Well, over the past several weeks, your district has unveiled some details about *** new 10 year strategic plan called Reimagining Education. Now walk me through some of the elements of that plan. Absolutely, um, this is one of the most. Exciting times in the history of Des Moines public schools. Our reimagining education plan is actually our response to, um, sort of the needs that the community have shared with us with regards to whether they're looking forward to when they think about *** quality preschool to grade 12 public education system and so we spent the last year or so um and. Engaging with members of the community, about 80 individuals on *** committee that included parents, um, teachers, leaders, and certainly students, and we spent *** lot of time, um, certainly *** significant number of hours thinking about what do we need to put in place, um, from *** strategic standpoint to ensure that we are creating *** truly world class school system, um, that will become the destination of choice, uh, for any parent or child who's of school age and so the plan. Is dynamic and it really outlines the steps that we are planning to take to accomplish some big and bold goals. So what are some of the things that will help accomplish that? Yeah, so you know some of the work that we've embarked upon already includes really looking at the current educational offerings. Um, we are thinking about expanding our Montessori schools, for example, you know, we have Costes. Story that over the last 10 years has uh certainly um produced some of the highest performing academic scores in elementary and middle schools and because of that we have decided that as *** part of reimagining education and reinvigorating our schools to expand our Montessori offerings to each of our um geographic regions here in Des Moines. Secondly, uh, we are looking at what we're calling signature schools. This is where we are gonna build on um programs that have really that are really grounded in research and strong practices um across the country um this committee that I just referenced have visited high performance school districts we've worked with researchers uh to look at programs that can really produce strong outcomes for students and so our signature schools will include um some thematic approaches to science, technology, engineering, and math, so STEM. Uh, we will consider maybe schools that are gonna focus on performing arts. We're gonna consider schools that are looking at health sciences. The goal is to make sure that we are really responding to the changing needs of students today. And thirdly and certainly this is not an exhaustive list, only 3 of those big shifts we're making. we're being really thoughtful about how we are utilizing our physical spaces, right? The the average age of our school buildings, um, you know, 64 schools is about 80 years old, and certainly we want to make sure that we are in *** dynamic environment where students when they knock on the doors of our schools are coming into buildings that are not only refined but are sophisticated and so what we thought about having worked with. Um, *** lot of experts in the school facility planning space is to think about how we manage the reallocation of resources to meet the needs of not only our, our students but teachers and leaders who are driving some of the change. *** lot of different pieces there and I know that's just scratching the surface and we also know since 2019 there's been *** steady decline in in enrollment in the district um, and when *** student leaves the district *** lot of times that's through open enrollment, but they take that funding with them and so we've seen, you know, Des Moines Public schools has had to have *** series of budget cuts, you know, cutting, uh, millions of dollars from the budget. I know that the plan aims to reverse that trend by 2030. How do you get there? How do you get more students. And staying and transferring into Des Moines public schools, so there are 3 sort of strategic approaches we're going to take, right? The first is to make sure that we look at and become more conversant with the enrollment trends, and what we've seen is uh sort of *** challenge that is faced not only by among public schools but every school system pretty much in the state and around the country declining enrolling because of the competitive and and and challenging and dynamic um school environment that we face. Secondly, Um, we want to reverse that trend and the way for us to do that is through our reimagining education plan. We are really committed to offering, um, through some bold initiatives, high level forward thinking, creative and innovative instructional programs that will get our students to to come to the system that will attract parents. We currently have programs that are world class programs. Our Central Academy, for example, offer more than 30, uh, different CTE programs, and so our goal as *** part of the reimagining education plan. It's expand on those programmatic offerings finally. We are thinking about how do we not necessarily just think about what happens with *** student while they're here, but we're thinking about how can we prepare students to be dynamic contributors of our community and so we are embarking upon what we're calling *** diploma plus program. We're excited about this initiative because essentially what it does is every single student who walks across the stage of the public schools will not only receive *** high school diploma but it will have *** diploma plus something and that's something that we're thinking about is that. At least one industry recognized certificate that will make them really attractive for any potential employer. So this is just scratching the surface of this really bold and dynamic plan. Absolutely another piece that parents are thinking about is safety. They want to make sure they're sending their kids to school that's safe as they're hearing about, you know, threats, shootings, violence, but also things like bullying and mental health you know how's the district approaching assuring parents that they're taking steps to make schools safer? Yeah, so we have certainly had this on our radar for *** very long time, uh, and the commitment that we've made to both students and parents is to think about safety, um, as *** sort of multi-layered, um, challenge. First, we wanna make sure that every single student who, uh, sits in our classrooms, um. Enjoys psychological safety so we want to create environments that are supportive of them and one step that we've taken is to partner with *** number of mental health organizations where we're offering some improvement or increases in constant services not only in person but we are now offering telehealth counseling services, um, of course, secondly, we've looked at the impact on cell phone use and students mental health, and we've piloted *** program this year. What we found after evaluating that pilot. Is that once we are sort of teaching students how to have uh sort of responsible use of their cell phones um it reduces the distraction to instructional programs and increases student attendance, student academic achievement, and it helps our students to build stronger relationships with their. Teachers and when we think about physical safety over the last couple of years among public schools have looked at some really sophisticated uh safety and security measures. We've hardened all of our buildings uh we've looked at and invested in resources such as impact resistant film. And, and while this is always *** challenging topic to talk about, we've also invested in some sophisticated uh weapons detection system that uses artificial intelligence technology. So while we wanna make sure that we are providing all of our students with *** quality in world class education. We are gonna continue to prioritize their well-being which includes safety, both psychological and physical safety of all of our students and every adult who serves them. *** lot of information there. Thank you, Doctor Roberts. Well, our conversation will continue right after this break. Stay with us. Our conversation with Doctor Ian Roberts, superintendent of Des Moines Public Schools, continues. Doctor Roberts, thanks for being with us. Thanks for having me. We were talking about reimagining education, this 10 year strategic plan, and there are *** lot of pieces to it, modernizing buildings, you know, um, education changes. How do you plan to implement that and make sure that it's actually, uh, creating quality outcomes and not just making, you know, surface level changes? Sure, so, um. This is *** 10 year plan and it's *** 10 year plan, um, *** journey that we've embarked upon over the last year by having this, uh, committee of stakeholders really convene about 80 individuals, um, that included parents, uh, teachers, leaders, and students, uh, to sort of do *** needs assessment about where we are in terms of not only our facilities, um, but that needs assessment include included just looking at our enrollment trends it also looked at uh. The academic programs that we're offering and we've asked ourselves the question, are we truly serving every single student who knock on our doors and meets the needs of all of those students? And the answer is no, right? While we have *** lot of outstanding programs and practices that we can certainly brag about, we want to make sure that we're accelerating improvements and so as we embark upon this journey over *** period of 10 years, we want to make sure that we are doing so thoughtfully and strategically. And the, the, the, the strategic plan that will guide our reimagining education, reinvigorating schools sort of endeavor is anchored in five big pillars, and those pillars include *** really solid look at how do we cultivate, um, equity and excellence in teaching and learning to make sure that we're providing our teachers with targeted and differentiated professional development support. In their evolving needs around um providing students with *** solid and quality pedagogical experience. The second is for us to think about how do we ensure the safety and well-being of our students and every adult who serve them, and that's the second pillar in this 5 year strategic plan. The third aspect of this plan, which is what we call *** big pillar, is around how do we cultivate transformative talent in addition to wanting to provide every single student with *** quality education. We want Des Moines public schools to be the destination of choice for every educator who so desires to either teach, leader or serve in our schools, um, the fourth sort of pillar in our 5 year strategic plan really encapsulates the reimagining education, reinvigorating schools work, and that is how do we cultivate, um, excellence, uh, in. Effectiveness and that's *** really critical part of the work because the reimagining education plan will certainly look at being thoughtful and strategic to get the desired outcome and the fifth pillar as we think about this much longer runway for us to achieve these ambitious and audacious goals is to ensure that we are partnering with and cultivating community collaboration ensuring that our parents are *** critical part of the work and so we're gonna implement this plan in *** very thoughtful and strategic way, giving ourselves *** longer runway of *** decade. Very quickly we only have *** little bit of time left. I also want to talk about chronic absenteeism. Uh, you've seen success, um, in getting more kids to attend school in first semester, but we're in 2nd semester now. Are you expecting to continue seeing improvements? We're expecting to see the trend around the improvement of chronic stent. Some of the reasons we are expecting. And actually predicting that we're going to see significant drops where we're encouraging more students to attend school is because every single adult in our buildings are invested in making sure that they get students to come to school through *** myriad of approaches. Well, Doctor Roberts, thank you so much for joining us this morning. We appreciate it. Thanks for having me. It's *** pleasure and thank you for joining us for ����vlog 8 News close up. We'll see you back here next Sunday. Have *** great day.