LPOSD trustees headed to convention
PONDERAY — Three board members from the Lake Pend Oreille School District headed to Boise this week for the Idaho School Board Association's annual convention.
During the conference, school board members have an opportunity to debate and vote on 12 resolutions submitted by Idaho school districts. None of the resolutions were submitted by LPOSD this year. ISBA recommends board members discuss the resolutions ahead of time so district representatives have an idea of how they want to vote. The LPOSD board briefly went over each one during the Nov. 1 board meeting.
"Every business session, at least once, but sometimes multiple times, there are amendments and changes that happen," said Board Chairman Steve Youngdahl, adding that there is typically pro and con conversation that occurs. "So, while we might have a pretty good idea of how we think we want to vote, it sometimes changes when we get there dependant upon the dynamic of the discussion and other viewpoints that we haven't had an opportunity to hear."
The 2017 proposed resolutions include flexibility for hiring principals and superintendents; funding impact from student extracurricular participation; student safety supplemental funding; hiring retired law enforcement officers as school resource officers; retentions of retired teachers; funding school construction; reducing the supermajority requirement for approval of school facility bonds; reduce the two-thirds majority vote requirement to a simple majority in order to convene a consecutive session; opposition to amending Article 9, Section 5 of the Idaho Constitution; incentive to encourage students to pursue teaching; rural school centers; and salary based apportionment for classified employees. Description of each resolution can be found on the ISBA website at idsba.org/node/58.
One favored resolution by LPOSD trustees is funding impact from student extracurricular participation. The resolution encourages the ISBA to work with Idaho legislators and the Department of Education to amend Idaho Code to allow school districts not to be penalized on ADA funding due to travel for students who participate in school-sponsored extracurricular activities.
There were a few resolutions board members were not too keen on, including hiring retired law enforcement officers as school resource officers. ISBA executive board also recommended "do not pass" on the resolution because of liability issues.
"We've discussed this in the past, and that is why our SRO is actually a city of Sandpoint employee through the police department," Youngdahl said.
Retention of retired teachers would allow school districts to hire experienced retired certified staff under a one-year contract to help fill positions due to a teacher shortage in Idaho. The resolution was split between board members, with some agreeing that it could help fill needed positions, but could be abused because it could cause an issue, or a public perception, of "double dipping" when a teacher retires and then is rehired.
The rural school center resolution would require the ISBA to work with the Idaho Legislature to establish rural school centers and fund the overhead and administrative cost of the center. LPOSD Superintendent Shawn Woodward said there is some support in the area for rural school centers and has requested it as an agenda item for board members to talk about in the future.
The next LPOSD meeting is a special meeting for the supplemental levy to discuss the extracurricular and curriculum needs of the district, and will be held at 6 p.m. Nov. 15 at the Columbia Bank building in Sandpoint.
Board trustees are scheduled to talk about the ISBA conference at the next regular board meeting, scheduled for 6 p.m. Nov. 22 at the Ponderay Events Center.