When school leaders from across Idaho met in Boise this week, they got a foreshadowing of the 2025 session — while rehashing the biggest education issue of 2024.

State superintendent Debbie Critchfield dropped some news Wednesday afternoon, when she told school administrators she is talking with the governor’s office about a private school choice bill. She offered no details, but said enough for one day.

Besides, school administrators have plenty of details to work through with House Bill 521 — the Legislature’s historic and overstuffed school facilities law. Turns out that it’s actually pretty complicated to plow $1.5 billion into the state’s overcrowded and dilapidated schools. Who’d have guessed?

Here are Wednesday’s takeaways from the Idaho Association of School Administrators’ annual conference:

‘I want to set our own table:’ Critchfield repositions on school choice

Critchfield confirmed that she has been involved in “active conversations” with Gov. Brad Little’s office on a possible private school choice bill.

But before anyone in a crowded conference room could ask, Critchfield said she was going to keep the details under wraps. “I’m not sharing them, because it’s not fully baked.”

Even so, the fact that Critchfield and Little are trying to bake up something is a significant development. Critchfield has been openly tepid about school choice; “I am not prepared to be an advocate for public funds going to private schools,” the newly elected superintendent told the Senate Education Committee in January 2023. Little has stayed out of the private school choice fray as well — touting choice within the prism of publicly funded options within the public system.

Little’s team isn’t saying much about the talks either. Matthew Reiber, the governor’s education adviser, spoke in general terms during Wednesday afternoon’s panel discussion, saying his boss will insist on a fair, accountable and transparent choice plan. Little didn’t mention school choice when he spoke to IASA Thursday. In a statement later Thursday, spokeswoman Madison Hardy reiterated a statement from Little’s State of the State address in January; the governor would only support a plan that “does not draw resources away from our public schools.”

Not surprisingly, the public school administrators in the audience were skeptical. Blackfoot School District Superintendent Brian Kress made a familiar appeal for fairness; if public schools are required to take all students from all backgrounds, then publicly funded private schools should be required to do the same. That will be part of a school choice accountability piece, said Critchfield, to applause.

For former Madison School District Superintendent Geoffrey Thomas, the whole idea remains a nonstarter because, no matter how you frame it, school choice puts public money into parochial educators. Hardly a unique sentiment in the public education arena — and it echoes the Idaho Constitution’s Blaine Amendment, a longstanding and formidable obstacle to school choice proposals.

Administrators were skeptical, and Critchfield and Little might receive a similar reception from school choice advocates. Privately, and sometimes publicly, school choice backers have grumbled about the lack of support they’ve received from two Republican statewide elected officials.

Perhaps Critchfield and Little are evolving on the issue, or perhaps they’re pivoting in response to political pressure.

IASA Executive Director Andy Grover noted the political realities Wednesday. As more Republican-led states adopt school choice programs — often with high pricetags — it’s harder to hold the line in Idaho, he said. “This year is probably going to be the toughest year we’ve had with this conversation.”

Critchfield acknowledged the debate isn’t going away. In 2023, she said, supporters pushed a private school tax credit bill, and many public education leaders felt they never had a seat at the table.

“I want to set our own table,” she said.

‘We missed it:’ a HB 521 glitch, and a complicated rollout

HB 521 puts an unprecedented infusion of state money into school buildings, giving local administrators help they’ve long pleaded for. But while schools wait for that money to start rolling in, they’re worrying about a potential headache brought on by the convoluted 30-page law.

Because of federal bonding guidelines, school districts will only be able to use money from state-issued bonds for capital projects. They can’t use the money to pay for maintenance staff, such as groundskeepers or repair crews.

Kress was skeptical. “You believe (legislators) didn’t see that coming?”

Grover was contrite. “We missed it.”

Critchfield was conciliatory. “I know there was never an intent for it to become a negative for districts.”

More fundamentally, the school administrators gathered in Boise this week have no idea exactly when the facilities money will start flowing from Boise to their hometowns.

That hinges on when the state secures $1 billion in bonds for facilities projects. That will probably happen in several installments over the next few months, and could wrap up by the spring, said Gideon Tolman, the Idaho Department of Education’s chief financial officer.

But the bonding, in turn, hinges on paperwork from the schools. Districts are required to turn in 10-year plans that spell out their projected facilities needs. The sooner the districts file their 10-year plans, the sooner the state can quantify its needs for financing, and go into the bond market.

The paperwork wasn’t as arduous as Jonathan Balls expected. “I anticipated that it would be a little more,” said Balls, the Pocatello-Chubbuck School District’s director of business operations.

Now, the waiting begins — with considerable urgency. Pocatello-Chubbuck hopes to have its $43 million from HB 521 by June. The money is the centerpiece of the district’s plan to replace Highland High School, after an April 2023 fire destroyed 70,000 square feet of the school.

Pocatello-Chubbuck hopes to open a replacement in August 2027.

What happens from here?

There aren’t many truly new issues that emerge in any legislative session.

So this week’s IASA conference focused on familiar topics.

Critchfield said she would try again to tweak the school funding formula, making another attempt to free up more dollars to help at-risk students.

Grover said he expected a closer look at state-funded literacy programs, especially in the face of stagnant reading scores. “When the money’s a little tighter and it will be this year, we will look at things we traditionally do.”

Grover also expects lawmakers to fine-tune the school facilities law. He says he has been talking with House Speaker Mike Moyle, HB 521’s chief architect, who seems open to fixing the maintenance staff salary issue.

But all of these topics could be secondary to school choice – which is likely to be the education debate of the 2025 session. The dynamics of that debate took one more twist Wednesday.

Kevin Richert writes a weekly analysis on education policy and education politics. Look for his stories each Thursday.