"Setting The (Idaho) World Right": School Super Speaks Out

By Dr. Mike Tomlin
Monday, 4/18/2011 

Today was an amazing day, starting with good coffee at Emilio's and reading the Idaho Statesman's lead news article on the Boise Schools. Except for the word "Boise" in front of schools, and the dollar amounts, the story could have been written about our Garden Valley Schools. The Boise school district is down $36 million from the 2008-2009 school year. And no one is asking where their "contingency fund" went, like a former stalker and resident of Garden Valley did of our school principal last week.

It was an intelligent article written to inform. The Boise district has cut staff and supplies, and is in the final stages of using up its "rainy day fund". The article quoted district spokesman Dan Hollar -- in itself a joy to see the Statesman staff actually finding their way to ask a district office employee of the facts.

Then down the block to the 20th Annual Education Law Institute at the Boise Center on the Grove. Well over 300 people representing Idaho's 115 school districts. Fellow Superintendents, Board Clerks, HR Managers, and Trustees. I know many of them, and we laugh as we reunite, most thanking me for keeping Garden Valley in the news, evidently the only district in the state with money woes and certainly the only district trimming staff. "Hey Tomlin, we appreciate you, and your people who would rather trash their home community than know the truth." In truth, they each know they are one phone call from being next, and they wish us no ill will, but in this business, every day off the media cycle is a good day.

They see the bias on Channel 7, and try to avoid it and interviews there too. I show them the "Heads saved" and "Chopping Block" article by Kathleen Wilson in the Idaho World. They laugh at the writing and the column. "These people need to come up for air sometime," they say. They know. The paper is small town, but it could be accurate. It could be honest.

"Administrators say" the "sweeping staffing cuts...were necessitated by slashed state budgets?" No we didn't. The funding cuts have hurt, but mostly our cuts are needed because the district has been overspending to keep elective programs and small elementary class sizes it cannot afford. That was the reason for the levy. That is why the levy was run even before we got our revenue numbers for next year. That is why we reported the need for a 2011 levy in our budget hearing last year.

The Board fully understood this as they approved the levy. Idaho World reporter Kathleen Wilson understood it too, as she served on the levy promotion work group. One can only speculate on what caused her to write falsely in the paper.

She also wrote that I "axed three clerical workers, keeping just one to help run the district." Not true. We only have three clerical workers. And while we anticipate one may retire, the others know full well they have a chance to be hired back in a reconfigured job. Wilson could have known it too if she had bothered to ask. The truth, man. It is there for people who want it, and it is there to be ignored by those who do not.

The Idaho World also stated that our plans left "just two teachers in grades K-5." That is untrue. Since the Idaho World's reporter didn't care to ask for the truth, I can share what she doesn't know - first, we "could" reconfigure middle school and move a teacher there, adding our Title I teacher. That would fully cover the K-5 grades with four very good teachers. But we likely will not do that - more probably combine a couple of grade levels and hire back from the laid off pool. The teachers knew that, and the Idaho World could have known it with a simple question and competent reporting. Their reporter chose neither.

But competent reporting would not have allowed them to conclude we would have "no teacher's aides to work with Special Education students." The week before the Monday "massacre" I assured the district's Special Education Director that she was authorized to hire over the summer what help was needed to meet our responsibility to special needs children. We will meet it in the fall also. But laying off when work is done, and hiring back when tasks require is not a new concept. It is just new to education, and the kind of "new" demanded by this year's legislature and today's taxpayer.

Always spot on, Trustee Jeff Bass noted in the Idaho World that the board had "put off the inevitable." Exactly, and it was their right. They know the figures and have since December been working the dollars right through the levy campaign. Those dollars won't change when we get our new revenue numbers from the state. The job before the board remains.


In the category of even blind squirrels find an occasional nut, IW reporter Kathleen Wilson did correctly note that "teaching positions are funded by the state." We are a state school district...but this may still be "news" to some.


And finally the drama. I find it ironic that those who call the television news, and who print headlines stating "Heads saved from the Chopping Block..." would infer that the District desires a "dramatic effect." That is simply untrue. And of course our 300 friends in the Center on the Grove know that it is untrue, as they listened today to the same updated legal reports from the recent legislative session, that we listened to. All hoping they could avoid that next media cycle.


Then we all headed home, to head back tomorrow for round two. And in parting, one after another tells the GVSD contingent - "hey we'll see you tonight on Channel 7." Too funny.


But we learned a lot, and it was a day well spent. Tomorrow we get the finance side of the new legislation, that finance side that is funded in fact by the state, Idaho, that funds our teaching positions. But I am certain you will read all about it in the Idaho World.