Don't miss your appointment

The Kootenai County Board of Commissioners are being sent back to school.

Tomorrow night, they'll publicly interview six candidates for the one vacancy on the Coeur d'Alene School Board and could choose the appointee that evening.

This isn't something they signed up for, exactly. Commissioners Dan Green, Todd Tondee and Jai Nelson have a $75 million county government to run, after all. But because a vacancy on the school board has existed for more than 120 days, officials dusted off an Idaho statute that says it's now up to the board of commissioners to make the appointment.

So here we go.

The Press encourages citizens to attend the interviews starting Thursday at 5 p.m. in room 1A/1B of the county Administration Building, 451 Government Way. We think you'll find six candidates whose hearts are all in the right place. That doesn't necessarily mean their brains are. And that's why we're hopeful the interviews tomorrow night probe as deeply into the minds of the candidates as possible.

Please don't spend the bulk of time on the backgrounds of the six. If there's something important to add to the background discussion - beyond what was published on the front page of Saturday's Press - please keep it short. The more the commissioners and audience are enlightened on the candidates' specific views on education issues, the better.

Some issues worth addressing:

• Who is best suited to select novels for high school students to read, and why?

• Please address the three major arms of Idaho public education reform and explain your views on each of them.

• To what degree should educators - teachers, staff, administration - be involved in the personal health and safety of students?

• What specifically would you do to encourage parents to become more involved in their children's education?

• What specific areas of the current District 271 budget would you try to trim? What specific areas might you try to increase?

• What is your view of the district's upcoming $32.7 million bond request?

• How would you attempt to improve student discipline in schools?

In this overly politicized world of ours, we hope the commissioners will ignore party positions and instead select the person based strictly on his or her ability to help lead District 271 successfully through the daunting challenges ahead.