SCHOOL: Yes to IB, PYP, Props

I agree with much that Ben Rarick had to say about IB and the need to prepare all our students for a globally impacted future. As a parent of recent graduates of Coeur d’Alene High School and one daughter, the survivor of the original and rigorous IB program at CHS, I am relieved to say I have no more kids to maneuver through the local school system.

Dissolution of PYP at Hayden Meadows, folding of IB first at CHS, then Lake City High, is a powerful indication of a school board in disarray and dangerously rudderless with regard to higher learning. I realize many of the original board members have departed since the origins of these program start ups. That is a shame as their vision of challenging not only the remedial learner or technical trainee but also the gifted and academic was also important.

If we are a community who wants to channel our bright kids into charter academies, private schools in Washington or home schooling and detract from relocations by educated professional parents we are doing an excellent job of it through a narrow minded, small-thinking board. To label IB as anti-American with flag salutes to the U.N. is frightening. If you are truly interested in our future generations you will balance learning for ALL students. American education in the math and sciences are in the bottom tiers for First World countries — we are not breeding the Bill Gates or Henry Fords of the future. We need to nurture the next generation of innovators and this cannot happen in an Idaho Panhandle vacuum.

Do we honestly believe it is OK to dumb down our bright and hungry learners through legislated ignorance? If achievers are thwarted they will go elsewhere and it is the communities who lose when these leaders and independent thinkers depart. If status quo is not OK then make a change to this narrow-minded, fear mongering school board and vote “non-confidence” next spring on the May ballot. The disarray has impacted the current educational year enough; let the dust settle but do not let this abyss widen. Vote for a better, brighter school board in MAY 2013.

For this reason also, we need to VOTE YES to Props 1, 2 and 3 so our local students do not contribute to an even lower ranking for Idaho education, currently in the lowest 25 percent for all U.S. public schools. The Panhandle has been hit hard during the Great Recession. We need to diversify our future and the students of today will be our educated leaders or our uneducated welfare burden of tomorrow.

LYNN M. FLEMING

Hayden