Public education survived the session

Reclaim Idaho worked hard on their petition to increase funding for public schools which resulted in historic increases in education funding including $145M for teacher pay raises, $97.4M towards classified employee salaries, and an additional $48.8M in discretionary funding for schools. From the property tax bill that passed, schools will also receive $100M to pay down bonds.

Idaho Launch grants expanded an existing program to provide Idaho high school graduates with $8,000 or 80% of a program’s tuition (whichever is less) to a career training program or community college. This will make a big difference for the students who qualify for this opportunity and improve Idaho's 60% go on rate.

Special interests made a huge push to put public funding into private schools this session and create education savings accounts. Thankfully, these efforts failed to move forward and this was a huge win. Public education funding will remain public.

I am honored to be seatmates with Representative Galaviz, a public schoolteacher whose voice was incredibly valuable on all of these topics. Next year, we will all need to continue to work hard to ensure public education is protected.