News

A panel of legislators agreed that expanding schooling options for families will be a priority in the 2023 session.

In other items, students at The College of Idaho come away with honors from a model United Nations event, and a State Board of Education official will chair a Western cooperative.

Some conservative lawmakers have pushed for a variety of school choice options, such as education savings accounts, tax credit programs or scholarship funds.

Idaho parents with adjusted gross income at or below $60,000 have until 8 p.m. on Friday to submit an application and qualify for the first wave of prioritized funding.

“My goal is to be able to serve on day one, and filling key positions is a reflection of this priority,” the state superintendent-elect said in a news release.

New schools will serve students in the Lewiston and Treasure Valley areas.

Sen. Dave Lent, R-Idaho Falls, who co-chairs the interim committee, hopes the group will have some “deliverables” in the coming weeks.

Inspectors try to get into every K-12 school in Idaho every three years — looking for structural flaws or procedural problems that put kids and staff at risk. Last year, they barely made it into a fifth of the state’s schools.

Less than half of current 28,000 applications have been approved, education department says.