Over the course of a week as we start work on stories, we sometimes witness shifting news.

Case in point – the case that Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird enjoined the state to with 16 other states that challenge 504 plans (Texas vs. Becerra). The story of that lawsuit moving forward and Iowa’s involvement broke Monday, Feb. 10.

One of the issues this newspaper has with Bird’s decision to join the lawsuit is the fact that action was publicly hidden from constituents back in September.

As Laura Belin of Bleeding Heartland posted Sunday, Feb. 16, no press release on the case was released in September. Like Belin, the email account of the Mount Vernon-Lisbon Sun gets notices for the lawsuits that Bird’s office is involving the state in, and the editor routinely evaluates many cases for if they would have an impact locally and be something to report on. Many of those cases, because of our hyperlocal focus on these two communities, have a minimal impact to our communities.

This one, however, will definitely have a local impact.

According to Kate Stanton, Washington Elementary School principal and speaking on behalf of the district on this issue, the impact would be in the range of 65 to 75 K-12 students per year if an outright challenge to strike down 504s were to move forward, many of them at the high school level. That’s roughly 5 percent of Mount Vernon’s entire school population impacted.

As Stanton further elaborated – striking down 504s would “reduce support for students with disabilities. This includes not only educational disabilities but students with diabetes, visual impairments, students who are deaf or require special diets. Students have 504s for a variety of reasons and 504s protect these students and provide them with the accommodations they need to be successful in a variety of major life events, not just school. By striking down 504s we [would be] increasing inequity in education, something we have fought against for so long.”

Bird’s office and several of the other states have since made additional clarifying statements and press releases about the lawsuit, noting their actions were only intended for the inclusion of a few sentences adding gender dysphoria under Section 504. We’ll take them at those words currently, but their actions with that lawsuit are shouting a whole different story.

We’d argue that the best course of action for all involved would be to stop the lawsuit indefinitely and make the target just the specifics of what they are challenging instead of letting a lawsuit targeting the entirety of 504s to hang over schools indefinitely as one more thing to worry about.

Overly broad lawsuits because you have issue with a few new added definitions would have far more reaching consequences than the attorneys attended.

Unless their intent is what the original lawsuit has laid out – in which case we agree the actions against 504s will be catastrophic to not just local schools, but schools across the nation and many with disabilities.