School Districts Should Consolidate or Lose Funding

$500,000. Half a million bucks; could your mid size school district use the extra money? That is the cost for the average 3A school district to staff and maintain a district office.

State legislators (motto: where's a good abortion bill when you need one) have told us that they lack the political will to force small, inefficient school districts to consolidate. This is a lot like the mother who is bankrolling her teenager saying: 'I don't know how to stop her from dressing like a hooker.'. If you control the checkbook, you control everything; grow a spine, suck it up, and buy her a shirt that doesn't allow every neighborhood pervert to count her fat rolls. The state needs to treat these obstinate districts like the tantrum throwing teenagers they are. If you want to have a stand-alone district in a municipality with the same population as a lunch-time Denny's, fine, but you better get a job and pay for it yourself.

The state should immediately dictate minimum size requirements for districts to be eligible for state funding. The simplest method would be through a student/superintendent ratio; that's one even the state superintendents association could understand. By the way, do you really think the aforementioned association will support anything that reduces their dues-paying membership?

This will not affect sports (except for the really small schools who struggle to field an 8 man football team; they can only improve through consolidation) or the ability of small communities to have a school in their town. It will also help to temper some of the meddling local boards are famous for in one-school districts.

This is not a state intrusion on local control. It's the state saying that we cannot finance every locality's provincial narcissism; you can have whatever district your willing to pay for.

To the legislature: one party has almost total control of every corner of state government; cancel your power-lunch, find a backbone and do something that will provide near-term and long-ranging financial benefits to Idaho's education system.