Trio’s plan is calculated effort to dismantle WBCSD

The triumvirate of Keith Rutledge, Troy Reinbold and Susan Brown has secured the majority vote of the West Bonner County School District board of trustees in order to turn the school district around and bring it to prosperity, all so the students can have the best education possible, correct? Unfortunately, this just isn’t true. Nothing that the triumvirate — headed by chair Rutledge — has done remotely augers toward the success of the district, or its students.

Instead of hiring the best-qualified candidate for superintendent, they hired a decidedly unqualified candidate with no classroom experience. He has been in lots of positions, but not one that qualifies him for his role as superintendent. That would be Braden Durst. Not to be outdone by the triumvirate’s poor decision-making, Durst, in turn, is looking for the best and brightest not by hiring from a qualified pool of certified teachers, but is accepting applications for those who “have completed at least two years of college.”

The above was possible by the triumvirate’s declaration of emergency. There was no reason for one. Furthermore, Durst’s salary of over $100,000 a year is now being taken out of the general fund, instead of being reimbursed by the state of Idaho.

How will this shortfall be covered? Simple: the board just offered the current teachers the lowest wages of any district within 100 miles in recent negotiations. The decisions being made by the triumvirate, and now Durst, aren’t by accident. They are a deliberate, calculated effort to dismantle the district piece by piece.

GLENN HINES

Priest River