When Wendy Moore was hired as superintendent of the Genesee School District 15 years ago, the Michigan native was pleasantly surprised by how connected Idaho state leaders were to school leaders. 

Now, Moore is the one making the connections in her new role as director of the North Idaho Regional Support Center with the Idaho Department of Education. 

It’s a new position invented by Superintendent of Public Instruction Debbie Critchfield, who wants her department to take a more hands-on role to support school leaders in remote parts of the state. Rather than administrators in North and East Idaho calling to Boise with questions, Moore and her counterpart Spencer Barzee located in the East will be in their regions talking with and visiting superintendents on their campuses. 

“One of Debbie’s main priorities in working with the districts is to be of service,” said Scott Graf, communications director for the IDE. “The importance of being face to face with folks in the district, that’s a priority for the department and for the superintendent.” 

Moore did a bit of everything in Genesee from driving school buses to serving as elementary school principal, a job she gave up this year to take on the new role with the IDE. She remains Genesee’s superintendent on a part time basis. She also has served in multiple roles at the Idaho Association of School Administrators, including a stint as president.

Still, she remembers when she first arrived how involved state leaders were willing to be in her small district between Moscow and Lewiston. 

“It was really an awakening for me at how close those contacts are, that you could actually reach out and get direct information,” Moore said. “You got to know the superintendent of instruction on a first name basis and in other states you don’t often get that opportunity.”

As director of the North Idaho support center, Moore will further that sense of connecting to state leaders she has felt by attending the monthly Region 1 and Region 2 superintendent meetings. She gives reminders on paperwork deadlines and state programs and then takes superintendents’ concerns back to her colleagues at the IDE.

“I’m sort of the liaison that takes information both ways,” Moore said. 

The plan is that Moore and Barzee will take some of the pressure off of superintendents and charter school administrators to juggle deadlines and employee needs.

“Sometimes you get so busy in the day to day that it’s hard to keep track of everything,” Moore said. “’I do think it’s beneficial to have somebody that’s coming in just giving you the updates and bringing that information to you instead of you having to seek it out or feel like you’re caught off guard when something comes.”

Moore oversees the mentorship program for new school administrators that provides a stipend for veteran school leaders to guide their more junior colleagues. 

She also has a role in implementing new legislation, like the self-directed learner designation that became law in 2023. Self-directed learners have individualized plans that allow them to attend school less than full-time or partially online if they are engaging in other forms of education like apprenticeships that push them toward their career goals. 

This can help districts who may have seen a financial loss when school funding went back to being tied to average daily attendance instead of enrollment. Students on self-directed learner plans count as full-time attendance even if they aren’t in school the traditional amount, Moore explained. 

However, creating these individualized plans for students to become self-directed learners can be complex and takes time. 

“I’m in the process right now of trying to develop a template that districts might be able to make their own, and that way, it takes a little bit of work off their shoulders that they can tweak it and modify it and make it their own to implement in their districts,” Moore said. 

Similarly, Barzee, who took on the regional director role for East Idaho about a year ago, has helped districts with the implementation of the technology piece of House Bill 521, a school facilities bill that passed earlier this year. 

As part of that bill, the IDE purchased software that all districts need to utilize and Barzee is helping districts implement the new system. 

While Barzee and Moore serve different regions, the needs of their superintendents are similar, they said. 

“I think in most cases, they’re synonymous,” Barzee said. 

The school districts in the Boise Valley are supported directly by the IDE, located in Boise, rather than a regional office.

Both Barzee and Moore spend a lot of time traveling to schools in their regions, checking in face to face with superintendents, something Moore said not only brings educators on the ground closer to policy makers but to each other. 

She recently visited a school that banned cell phones this school year and discussed the challenges and successes of implementing the shift. If another superintendent considers a similar policy, Moore can connect the two. 

“I’m not asking them to do anything different than what I’m currently having to do as an administrator,” Moore said. “So I understand the pain points and some of the things that we may think is redundant or unnecessary, and now I should be able to explain why we’re having to do that and make it a little bit easier to swallow.”