District staff testify on reform plan
BOISE — Lake Pend Oreille School District representatives delivered a unified message to the Idaho legislature: don’t fix what isn’t broken.
LPOSD Superintendent Dick Cvitanich, school board member Mindy Cameron and Sandpoint High School teacher Brian Smith caught an early flight to Boise on Wednesday for the third day of education reform public hearings.
“We wanted to make sure that we were there to give the district’s perspective,” Cvitanich said.
Despite their efforts to arrive early, the LPOSD officials waited two and a half hours for their turn at the microphone. Once at the stand, they focused their comments on the reform’s impact to school labor policy.
“We presented the perspective that the system currently in place works fine for us,” Cvintanich said. “We don’t necessarily need any changes there.”
Labor alterations proposed by the reform plan would dramatically change the way school districts managed human resources. It would restructure salary systems, require yearly compensation bargaining, do away with continuing contracts. Cvitanich also cited teacher evaluation by parents as an unnecessary addition to performance review.
“Parents aren’t in the classroom to see the teaching experience firsthand, so I don’t see how they could provide a complete perspective,” Cvitanich said in a January interview.
Cvitanich, Cameron and Smith agreed that they delivered their perspective clearly and completely despite a three-minute time limit.
“I felt very good about it,” Cameron said. “We all gave strong presentations, and we offered a united voice.”
LPOSD representatives were a minority in their topic of choice. The sizable majority focused on the controversial initiative that would increase class sizes, reduce staffing positions and fill the resulting void by providing high schools with laptops and online classes.
According to Cvitanich, the presentations delivered throughout the day split fairly evenly between reform supporters and opponents. Individuals with favorable experiences in virtual education supported the approach. Others considered face-to-face interaction between teachers and students a necessity.
And whatever their opinion, Idaho residents attended the hearing in droves to support it. Cvitanich estimated that between 250 and 300 people packed into the hearing room, while dozens upon dozens more crammed into overflow rooms set up with a video feed. Few school board members and only six to eight superintendents spoke out, the vast majority being teachers, parents or students.
The healthy attendance by young people was particularly heartening for Cvitanich. He said their presentations were articulate and thoroughly prepared, especially a young woman who delivered a petition with more than 1,000 signatures to keep teachers in classrooms.
“It was great to see so many students taking an active role in their education,” Cvitanich said.
The public hearing continued past 6 p.m., at which point the legislative committee adjourned in anticipation of further deliberations on Thursday. Cvitanich said that the entire day was characterized by respectful and reasoned discourse.
“We walked away thinking what a great example of democracy in action the day had been,” Cvitanich said.