Boundary County School District 101 Tries Tactics of Veiled Threats and Other Important Notes
Name: Jeanine Betsher
Be Aware – The State of Idaho is coming to Valley View this month!
As you know, last fall we defeated Boundary County School District’s attempt to pass another school bond. At the time, we were told by school trustee Teresa Rae that if it did not pass, the State could not only come in and tell us that we had to build a new school, but also that it would ultimately cost much more than the school district was asking for in the bond.
It seems that was not an idle threat on the part of the school trustees. I regularly attend the school board meetings and at the March 20th meeting I was surprised to hear brief mention of the fact that the State is coming to Valley View in April.
I reached out to Superintendent Jan Bayer afterwards to confirm that I had heard correctly. I asked why they were coming now, if they were invited, and if so, by whom? I also stated that I find it hard to believe that it is a coincidence that they’re coming several months after we were warned/threatened that this would happen if the bond did not pass last year.
Superintendent Bayer’s response is as follows: “Yes, a bond measure failed twice for Valley View, but the needs did not disappear. We are following the avenues provided by the State. The recommendation to request the State to inspect the building occurred in January. The State’s schedule did not permit them to be here until now.”
We cannot continue to let the school system tax us to death in order to get what they want. And that goes for the county and the city of Bonners Ferry as well. The school levy passed last month, and now the city of BF is putting on the May ballot a 1% sales tax increase on all sales within the city limits.
As usual, there’s never any attempt to think outside the box and work to find an alternate solution – instead, the answer is always tax, tax, and more tax!
Should we expect police to be sent to our homes if we don’t go along with the school board?
We have built beautiful gyms and out buildings while the 75 years old anchor buildings are crumbling why spend a million bucks for plumbing remodeling on a 75 year old building with structural and roof problems and Small student population just throw some more money at it…. stop the bleeding and rethink our schools y
I remember some time ago when living in Moyie Springs, the school district spent a ton of money on the Evergreen School there, only to shut it down later. At that time, we never understood the rationality of that. Might have had to do with the outlining school situation. If that was the case, the school district sure didn’t use very good planning and judgement in my opinion.
We should just get rid of public schools altogether. They are an abject waste of money and teacher’s unions are awful.
I’m hoping that Hillsdale takes over the Boulder Creek Academy. That would solve a lot of problems.