As both superintendent and principal of Cambridge School District, I recently testified against Senate Bill 1096. Yet I want to be clear: I support the bill’s core concept of student-centered funding. The problem isn’t with the idea of funding based on student attributes – it’s that this approach alone doesn’t address the fundamental realities of running a rural school.
School funding in Idaho is complicated – there’s no way around it. Over the past two years, Superintendent Critchfield and her team have worked with legislators to create a new way to divide up money between schools. They’re trying to do something important: make sure students who need extra help get the funding they need.
The bill rightly provides additional funding for students with attributes that typically cost more to educate: special education students, English language learners, economically disadvantaged students, gifted and talented individuals, at-risk students attending alternative schools, and those in schools with fewer than 600 students. This student-centered approach makes sense and deserves support.
Here’s what’s at stake: More than 60% of Idaho’s 192 school districts have fewer than 600 students. That’s not just a statistic – it’s who we are. The current proposal creates real problems for school districts like Cambridge and many others across our state. Right now, our district receives $310,000 in discretionary funding – money we need just to keep our school running. Under SB1096, we’d lose over 20% of this funding (almost $70,000) while our costs for everything from heating to transportation just keep going up. This isn’t just about being more efficient; it’s about whether rural schools can survive.
Idaho’s rural schools need a funding plan that matches reality. Yes, some students need extra support – and they should get it. But running a rural school takes more than just funding per student. A third-grade teacher costs us a full salary whether they are teaching 12 kids or 28. Many of our small rural schools already combine grade levels into one classroom.
Our basic costs don’t shrink just because we’re small. The furnace still needs fixing, the snow still needs plowing, and diesel prices keep climbing whether our buses carry 20 kids or 50. You can’t run half a school – these are the basic costs of keeping our doors open for Idaho’s rural families.
In Cambridge, we’ve already maximized efficiency. I serve as superintendent, principal, occasional substitute teacher, and sometimes even bus driver. Our teachers handle multiple subjects across different grade levels. Our secretary doubles as our nurse. The issue isn’t efficiency – it’s that certain core operational costs simply can’t be reduced without compromising our ability to operate.
The solution is straightforward: Create a hybrid funding formula that first ensures every district can maintain its basic infrastructure – the fundamental costs of keeping school doors open – and then layer on student-centered funding based on individual attributes and needs. This approach would preserve the bill’s innovative focus on student characteristics while protecting rural schools’ ability to operate.
I fully support the bill’s move toward more local control and consolidated special distributions. But we must recognize why those special distributions exist in the first place – they keep small, rural schools operating. To put it plainly, it costs more per pupil to educate students in rural Idaho, and no funding formula can change that reality.
Our rural schools are often the heart of their communities – the biggest employer, the Friday night gathering place, and the only facility large enough for community events. A hybrid funding approach would recognize both this vital community role and the need to support individual student characteristics.
Every morning, as I unlock our school’s doors, I think about both our community’s needs and our students’ individual requirements. Both deserve our support. We don’t have to choose between keeping our rural schools strong and giving extra help to students who need it most. Idaho can do both – and should do both. We can protect rural infrastructure while advancing student-centered funding – these goals aren’t mutually exclusive.
For over 100 years, our community has kept this school going, no matter how tough times have gotten. We’ve changed with the times while striving to provide quality education. Now we’re just asking the state to do right by our rural communities. Every Idaho child deserves a great education, whether they live miles from their nearest neighbor or in the heart of a city. But keeping our small-town schools open takes more than temporary fixes and two-year “hold harmless” promises. It takes fair funding that recognizes the fixed costs to operate a rural school.