LPOSD backs rural centers

PONDERAY — The Lake Pend Oreille School District Board of Trustees expressed support for a Region 1 Rural Schools Support Center during Tuesday’s board meeting.

While no official vote was required, board members supported Superintendent Shawn Woodward in signing a letter created by a committee of Region 1 superintendents who would like to see funding from the state for a support center. Letters of support from Region 1 school districts will go to Sherri Ybarra, Idaho superintendent of public instruction, for consideration.

"Basically (the committee) is talking about is there a way we all could work together and pull our resources in such a way that we would all benefit?" Woodward said.

A support center would assist with providing staff services rural schools in Region 1, such as special education services. In particular, Woodward said, the need for a school psychologists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, speech language pathologists, as well as prevention and intervention services.

"Those were the top priorities the region struggled with," Woodward said. "We don't struggle with quite as much with some of those as do others like, say, Plummer or Worley, which is in our region."

Woodward said it would benefit LPOSD if, for example, a psychologist left in the middle of next year and the district could not find a replacement. The district would enter into a memorandum of understanding with the support center to get a psychologist in place at least one day a week.

The committee of superintendents is asking Ybarra to fund $300,000 to get a support center up and running in the Region 1 area.

While the letter discussed by LPOSD board members Tuesday was specific to Region 1, a resolution to endorse rural support centers in Idaho was brought before trustees from districts across Idaho during the recent Idaho State Board of Education annual convention in Boise. The resolution was endorsed by 3,497 trustees, with only 348 votes against it.

Following the overwhelming endorsement, Idaho Education News reported that Ybarra and leaders of the Idaho State Department of Education will decide whether or not to amend next year's proposed school budget. There is one catch, the report states, that the funding must come from Ybarra's State Department of Education office and not from the public schools budget. She currently has $300,000 set aside in the public school budget for rural school centers, so to retain the support of ISBA leaders, Ybarra would need to amend the school budget.

Ybarra brought a proposal for rural school centers before legislators during the 2016 session and while it made it through the House, it died in Senate.