The tough decisions regarding school spending

Ensuring that your child’s school is equipped to meet all of requirements and rigors of providing a standard education is becoming more and more important.

In a recent Shoshone News-press article, rural school funding was addressed as one of the biggest problems facing schools in the area and Kellogg School District superintendent Woody Woodford discussed how specific funds get tagged for specific programs and can’t be used for anything else.

School staffs and boards are now presented with the same rock and hard place option year in and year out as the are given “choices” on what they can spend money on.

This isn’t just a public school issue either, private and charter schools are seeing their budgets cut and are being forced to chose what they believe will be vital for the next school year.

“It really is a school by school decision and sometimes even classroom by classroom,” Woodford said. “It depends on how schools want to use their discretionary funds.”

Those discretionary funds are funds that schools receive from their district’s general fund each year and then the school decides where the money is spent.

“It could be something like replacing a few textbooks or things like that, and once the absolute necessary stuff is taken care of, the schools can explore things like technology, science programs, things like that.”

A lot of these funds have to be shared though.

These funds don’t just happen though.

“The cost of educating students in surrounding states, (Oregon, Washington and Montana), approximately $9,500 per student,” Woodford said. “The Kellogg School District receives approximately $6,900 per student.”

These funds come from multiple sources including state funding, and local taxes, but the local tax base here in Shoshone County can only do so much.

Silver Valley Christian Academy is the lone private school option in the Valley and they also see how funding can be tricky, but deciding where limited funds go can be even trickier.

Shelby Brandi, the school’s head teacher has seen how hard this process can be and how can even cost them students.

“As a private school, we try to keep costs as low as possible so families who desire Christian education for their children can afford it,” Brandi said. “Unfortunately with the low tuition comes budget cuts. Those cuts include classroom equipment like projectors, laptops, tablets, and library texts. SVCA relies heavily on donations, whether monetary or in-kind. Our science lab equipment has grown due to those donations but is still lacking equipment vital to the coursework.”

Unlike public schools who have state funding and local tax dollars to fall back on, private schools rely on tuition costs, grants, and donations to make sure that they can educate at the highest level possible.

“The reality of fundraising for SVCA is it's typically the families, who already pay tuition, that are participating in the fundraisers financially,” Brandi said. “Staff and teachers are often participating heavily in fundraisers as well. Outreach into the community with fundraisers is a difficult task, especially in such a small community.”

The Idaho State Legislature has done better job over the last few years of putting an emphasis on education that wasn’t as prominent before, but they are still improving and that is something to be celebrated.

“In a perfect world the Idaho Department of Education would fund each student completely and we wouldn’t have to depend on levies all the time,” Woodford said. “But I do think that the Idaho Legislature is doing a good job moving forward. Sadly, at this point it is not enough.”