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Speaking to hundreds of Iowa educators, gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand invoked Iowa’s legacy as a national leader in education while laying out a vision for the state’s future should he be elected governor.
Running as a Democrat, Sand was the keynote speaker at the Iowa State Education Association’s 2026 Delegate Assembly on April 11, during which the group announced its support for his run for governor.
"ISEA, after careful consideration by our bipartisan ISEA PAC Committee, I am proud to officially announce that we are recommending Rob Sand to be the next governor of Iowa," Joshua Brown, the ISEA president, said excitedly into his microphone, met with boisterous applause.
The ISEA delegates, who are elected to set the organization's priorities, selected Sand to support in Iowa's gubernatorial race. ISEA is the union that represents Iowa's public educators, with contracts with more than 50,000 employees across Iowa's education systems.
"As the largest labor union in the state of Iowa, we are proud to recommend Rob for candidacy," Brown said. "We know that he's going to support our profession."
Sand's mother, Leslie Sand, a now-retired long-time Iowa AEA educator, spoke about her son as a child and how his education created "good characteristics for a governor."
"Teachers recall Rob as an 'extremely smart student,' which is their words," she said. "He learned that patience, asking and listening, and problem solving and collaboration were important characteristics needed in solving problems. ... As one of his former teachers told me, we know that he will be a supporter of public education and his teachers, and we need that right now."
As Sand walked onto the stage to speak, he was met by a sea of teachers, and applause and cheers filled the air. They held blue "Educators for Rob Sand" posters, matching red T-shirts that read the same.
Sand says Iowa set "foundation in education," then forgot about it
The tail of the Iowa state quarter features a one-room school, inscribed with "foundation in education."
Sand asked the crowd of hundreds of educators: "What would it mean for a state that says foundation in education on the state quarter to just sort of forget about education?"
Emphasizing that Iowa's education has been left behind in part because of the Republican Party, Sand said that bipartisanship would help bring Iowa back to its roots in education.
"State government hasn't been listening for a long time," Sand said. "They have got pre-conceived notions, using phrases like 'sinister teachers.' How did we, in Iowa, get to that point?"
Sand said that Iowa used to be "a place where everybody was welcome and everybody, no matter what," and now politics has divided it.
Educators — like his mother — worked to "help kids meet their potential," he said. "I know this room is full of people who feel the same way."
"I'm sick and tired of a state Capitol building that completely ignores the passion of the people in this room to serve the children of Iowa," he said. "The future leaders of the state of Iowa are future doctors, our future lawyers, our future teachers, everybody. I'm so tired of it.
"We need balance in the state of Iowa, and we need state government where the people who are actually in the classrooms with our kids are listened to or heard and are respected," he continued. "The work that you do is so important to the future of the state of Iowa."
‘We have a school voucher system that has no oversight’
Sand earlier this month unveiled an agenda focused on accountability and transparency in state government, the "Accountability for All" plan, which includes implementing rules and transparency for Iowa's Education Savings Account program.
Education savings accounts, also known as ESAs, are state-funded accounts introduced in 2023 that Iowans can use to pay tuition and fees at nonpublic schools.
Sand said the program has "no oversight."
"No oversight is slightly an exaggeration. There's a single rule," he said. "... The only thing you can't spend money on if you're a private school in the state of Iowa... is you can't pay a rebate to parents. That's it.
"If you want to buy booze with public dollars as a private school in the state of Iowa, you can do that," he said.
Sand recalled when he read the draft for the bill before it became law in 2023.
"I'm sitting there reading this bill, and I see all the money has to be spent on qualified educational expenses," he said. "And I'm reading through the qualified educational expenses and it says tuition and, you know, like a computer, some other stuff. And I'm like, OK, it seems reasonable."
Then he saw a line in the bill that read: "Private schools may not use this money to pay a rebate to parents."
"I'm like, where are the pages and pages of things that you shouldn't be able to spend taxpayer money on?" he said.
He said he questioned one of the bill's avid supporters, who answered: "We don't want public oversight of private schools."
"Then don't give them public money!" Sand said emphatically to the crowd, met by applause. "It makes no sense. Why would we do this?"
Sand, the state auditor, does not have oversight of private schools that receive the ESA funds from the state.
"If you want to run a for-profit school and put every dollar that you get from taxpayers into your pocket as opposed to spending it on education," Sand continued, "If you're a private school, you can do that in the state of Iowa. You don't have to get audits."
Current, former educators say ‘we need somebody like’ Sand
Dozens lined up to speak and take their photo with Sand after he delivered his address to the ISEA delegate assembly.
Teachers, young and old, new and retired, and those who teach at the elementary level all the way up to community college, gathered with grins on their faces, phones ready to take a photo with who they hope will be the next governor of Iowa.
Monique Cottman, a K-12 coordinator in Iowa City, who got her photo taken with Sand, said she has seen a decrease in teacher support since she first began teaching in 2005.
"There's certainly less support for the work that's needed to sustain us in these roles today," she said in an interview with the Register. She said she appreciated Sand's directness and honesty about bipartisanship and the state of Iowa's education.
"We need to come together and make sure that our education is our common focus," she said.
Frank Stark, a retired band director from western Iowa, said Sand is "down to home."
"We needed somebody like this to get us all excited," Stark said.
Kyle Werner is the breaking news and public safety reporter for the Register. Reach him at