More than 550 public school trustees are in Boise this week for the Idaho School Boards Association’s annual convention.
Trustees from across the state are networking and attending workshops at the three-day event, hosted at the downtown Boise Centre. Members will also set the association’s policy agenda.
Funding for school facilities and special education have been popular topics at this week’s conference, said Misty Swanson, ISBA’s executive director. So have private school choice, literacy and student achievement.
Trustees are hoping to find ways that school boards can “enhance student achievement and help students grow and learn statewide,” Swanson told Idaho Education News.
School board members are elected volunteers who oversee local spending and policies as well as administrators and teachers. The ISBA is an advocacy group that lobbies for trustees at the Legislature and offers training opportunities, like the annual conference.
Workshops this week have covered everything a new, or experienced, school board member should know, from budgeting and public transparency to navigating education politics and hiring a superintendent.
Emily Freeman, an eight-year trustee in the Firth School District, said the most useful session that she attended reviewed community partnerships that help school districts provide resources they aren’t always equipped for, like mental health services.
“There are community members out there that are willing to help, and provide trusting environments for students to be able to find a trusting adult,” Freeman told EdNews.
Another popular session Thursday explored the potential harms that private school vouchers or education savings accounts can cause public schools. The crowded room of trustees appeared receptive to a presentation by Beth Lewis of Save Our Schools Arizona, who critiqued the effects of Arizona’s education savings account program, including a shortfall in the state’s budget this year followed by spending cuts in public schools.
Meanwhile, Idaho lawmakers and political candidates are telling school officials that a private school choice program will pass next legislative session, said Marisela Pesina, board chairwoman in the Caldwell School District.
“It’s so disheartening,” Pesina said. “We still want to fight.”
ISBA members are scheduled to consider a resolution that opposes public funds for private schooling. That’s along with a suite of other proposed policy positions, including one that calls for prioritizing early learning initiatives and another that opposes a state mandate on arming teachers and staff.
Trustees will vote on the resolutions Friday, and ISBA will have its “marching orders” heading into the legislative session, which starts in January, Swanson said.
“We do our very best at the capitol building and with our Legislature,” she said. “You don’t always accomplish what the trustees are hoping that you do, but we certainly try our hardest.”
To read more about the resolutions, click here.
