Idaho Education News

As education culture wars consumed the Statehouse this spring, the running joke was that Idaho educators were scrambling to Google to figure out what “critical race theory” is. Things aren’t much different now. So, think of this as summer school.

The “Task Force to Examine Indoctrination in Idaho Education” reconvened Thursday — in a meeting marked by a rocky start, a tense middle and a slow end.

Idaho’s public colleges and universities have lost more than 5,000 students since the pandemic. t’s not worst-case scenario stuff. The 18-month dropoff was 8.7%, but administrators feared a 20% decrease.

Idaho’s ever-growing budget surplus is trending toward a record-shattering and mind-boggling $800 million. The big reason: Individual income tax collections are ahead of forecasts by a whopping $452.2 million. We’ll know the exact surplus sometime after June 30, when the state closes the books on the 2020-21 budget year.

The university will offer a three-year revenue guarantee to Alaska Airlines, under a contract that could bring back flights between Boise and Pullman, Wash. Under the agreement, approved by the State Board of Education Thursday, the flights could resume as early as Aug. 8.

Two competing guns-in-schools bills will not get a hearing in the waning days of Idaho's 2021 legislative session. They've been in the Legislature for months, but the timing ran out following a shooting this week in Rigby, Idaho, where a sixth grade student shot two other students and a school staff member.

The 2021 Idaho Legislature took its ugliest turn on its 108th day, when the House Ethics Committee weighed a sexual assault complaint against first-year Rep. Aaron von Ehlinger.

The new budget bills still have to pass both houses — and House conservatives have killed three major education bills over social justice and critical race theory concerns. But on Monday, the Senate followed the House’s lead, passing a bill addressing “nondiscrimination” in schools and critical race theory. That nondiscrimination bill, now on its way to Gov. Brad Little’s desk, is seen as a linchpin to passing education spending budgets.

The 500-student Lapwai School District takes an all-bases-covered approach to student well-being, including leveraging partnerships with the Nez Perce tribe and local community to address youth mental health. The small North Idaho district is among only nine rural districts in the state to provide four key behavioral health supports for all of its students, according to an Idaho Education News review of State Department of Education data.

The state’s K-12 teacher salaries budget fell Tuesday on a 34-34 tie vote after more than an hour of volatile debate — ranging from anecdotes about good teachers and “bad actors” to accusations that educators are being forced to include critical race theory in their coursework. Stories from teacher-lawmakers on both sides of the issue focused on the content’s presence — or lack thereof — in elementary, middle and high schools.