LPOSD, state legislators talk education

PONDERAY — The Lake Pend Oreille School District touched on a wide range of educational topics during a meeting with area legislators on Monday.

The group, which consisted of district officials along with Idaho Sen. Jim Woodward, Rep. Sage Dixon and State Board of Education member Shawn Keough, discussed topics from the district’s financial overview and strategic priorities, to the state funding formula and the recent recommendations made by Idaho Gov. Brad Little’s K-12 education task force.

The meeting kicked off with an update from Lisa Hals, the district’s chief financial and operations officer, who outlined the district’s financial overview, highlighting an increase in fund balance.

“We increased our fund balance by about $1 million,” Hals said. “For this year, we have about 12.2 percent of our general fund revenue now in fund balance, and that was due to a couple of factors, some planned and some not planned.”

As for the planned factors, Hals said, the district has been contributing to the general fund balance as part of the budgeting process for 15 years. Among the unplanned factors, Hals said it was learned late last year that the federal government last year chose to add another year to the Secure Rural Schools program, so the money the district garnered from that went into the fund balance as well.

Hals also noted that the district recently passed, by voter approval, an indefinite term maintenance and operations supplemental levy. The approval of the measure make the district’s current $12.7 million per year levy permanent as of July 2021.

In addressing the first of five strategic priorities for the district — ensure academic success for every student — LPOSD Superintendent Tom Albertson said there is an effort to extend career-technical and apprenticeship opportunities for high school students in the district. There used to be a residential carpentry program in place in the district, he said, where students would help build and sell houses. The advisory group for that program is still intact, so using some of the funds that were kept in an account, Albertson said the group has been asked to bring back “at least” an introduction to trades course.

There is one section of intro to trades being taught this year with a capacity of 24 students, he said, and 55 students signed up.

“That tells us where the need is and kids want to get into this,” Albertson said. “It’s more of an introduction into framing, concrete work, electrical (and) plumbing.”

The district’s CTE department chair and Sandpoint High School teacher Alex Gray said he has been working on partnerships with “anybody who will get on board,” but currently with Idagone Homes to implement an apprenticeship program. One of the biggest hurdles, he said, is in placing people under 18 in conditions where there are power tools and other potential dangers that create liability. There is a state program that is like an apprenticeship program, but it removes a lot of those barriers, Gray said.

The conversation ultimately moved over to some of the happenings, or potential happenings, at the state level with the upcoming legislative session. After a months-long debate regarding the funding formula in the Legislature earlier this year in an attempt to overhaul the funding formula, lawmakers ultimately passed a pared-down version, House Bill 293, which was described by Woodward as a “definitions bill.” While it did not change how the state pays for education, it did add new enrollment reporting requirements for districts.

It is expected that there will be another attempt to overhaul the funding formula in the next session to move from the current attendance-based formula to one based on student enrollment, as was recommended in the previous session.

“We definitely support moving to an enrollment-based calculation,” Hals said. “How students are quantified as full-time enrolled is the nexus of that, and those details have not been flushed out, so we are carefully paying attention.”

Woodward said House Bill 293, what was supposed to be a “simple definitions bill,” has been a challenge with the enrollment reporting requirements, so he is advocating for incremental changes and not something that will change the entire system at once.

“It takes time to change the process,” Woodward said. “I think that the first step is to shift to enrollment … we will see if that is feasible this year.”

As for the governor’s education task force, which was implemented in May, the 26 members approved five recommendations earlier this month. Keough, who serves as one of the members, said they didn’t place too much focus on the funding formula, though it is mentioned in the recommendations. Their assignment from the governor, she said, was to focus on the philosophies and goals the task force recommended for the K-12 education system in today’s structure, staying within Little’s priorities of K-3 literacy and attracting and retaining the best teachers.

The recommendations are statewide accountability focusing on K-3 literacy; greater all-day kindergarten opportunities to support K-3 literacy and future student achievement; building out and updating the career ladder salary allocation program to elevate the profession and retain effective educators; addressing social and emotional issues to support student learning; and strategic alignment and increased flexibility in the K-12 funding formula.

“The goal was to present those to the governor,” Keough said. “Now the governor will take those under advisement and decide which of those, if any, he wants to incorporate into his plans that he presents to the Legislature at the State of the State, and of course the Legislature will weigh in as well.”

Mary Malone can be reached by email at mmalone@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow her on Twitter @MaryDailyBee.