Tagged: Teachers

The Nampa School Board meets Tuesday to discuss the next steps in overcoming a $5.1 million budget deficit.

The Nampa School District’s financial hole keeps getting deeper. The most recent figure for the budget deficit in Idaho’s third largest district was a little more than $5 million. But at a school board meeting Tuesday night district officials revealed they also owe another $1.2 million in building bonds. The money had been used for general operations instead of being paid back on time. 

More teachers are leaving Idaho than people in other professions. That’s according to a report released earlier this month by the Idaho Department of Labor.

Of people who left Idaho between 2008 and 2011, 3 percent where K-12 teachers and 4 percent were college or university instructors. Both are among the top five groups of professionals leaving the state, with K-12 teachers at number four and college instructors number three.

Teacher morale is low throughout Idaho.  And school administrators have serious concerns about recruiting and retaining teachers. Those are some of the findings from a new study presented to lawmakers Tuesday.

The battle has been joined between those who want to keep Idaho’s Students Come First education laws and those who want voters to repeal them in November. Repeal supporters launched their “Vote No on Propositions 1, 2 and 3” campaign Tuesday. Supporters of the laws have hired a campaign and lobbying firm to make the case for keeping the laws in place.

Opponents of Idaho’s Students Come First education laws launched their campaign Tuesday morning to repeal those laws. Under a banner reading "Vote No On Propositions 1,2, and 3" speakers decried aspects of the three laws.