Area schools need your help

I love my job! As an elementary school principal I am privileged to watch young minds fill with knowledge, skillful teachers engage struggling learners and a caring staff nurture little bodies. I, like every administrator in the Coeur d'Alene School District budget materials and staff, schedule teachers and educational aides and search for grants and additional funding to ensure our buildings are being run as fiscally responsible as possible.

Principals examine all test data and search for the best instructional strategies to ensure schools are offering students their greatest opportunity for success. The teachers, staff and parents do everything possible with the resources available to ensure our kids receive an excellent education including paying for necessary supplies out of our own pockets, donating unlimited hours at school and community events and working with kids during lunch and before and after school.

Employees of the Coeur d'Alene School district stretch every penny entrusted to us by the citizens of our region to maximize our educational buck. If one doubts the fiscal frugality of our district, examine the yearly budgets on the district website (www.cdaschools.org). There you will find sizable reductions in expenditures between the 2008-2009 school year and our present school year. The school district is running a lean ship.

On March 12, the Coeur d'Alene School District is asking for the community to support a Maintenance and Operations Levy. In the past this levy provided supplemental income for the district - this levy is no longer supplemental but essential. Without this revenue, my school will look drastically different.

The nonacademic tasks asked of teachers should this levy fail will be overwhelming, not to mention the high number of employees who will lose their jobs. Teachers and administrators will be asked to take on janitorial, maintenance, landscaping, secretarial, crossing guard and recess duties with little classroom prep time and sizably larger class sizes. Technology will deteriorate and the safety and security of our children will be at-risk.

I often equate my school to the Christmas movie classic, "It's a Wonderful Life," and wonder what the school might look like if one of the main characters (20 percent of our funding) left our school? As George Bailey was given the gift by his guardian angel Clarence, to see the world as if he never lived, I see my school world as a dismal place if this levy does not pass. I see kids struggling emotionally not having a counselor to talk with. I see kids who require remediation having no one to help with their academic struggles. I see children trying to cross busy streets with no adult to hold a stop sign to stop cars. I see teachers with 38 children in their classroom trying to keep kids focused while attempting to teach reading. I see an emotionally tumultuous child explode and affect the learning of all kids in the school because he didn't receive the focus required of a high-needs kid. The money required to maintain academic and behavioral excellence was gone. In my, "It's a Wonderful Life," school, Bedford Falls Elementary becomes Potterville Elementary - not a pretty reality.

Some voters who will not support this levy believe that educational funding should come from the state as mandated by Article IX, Section 1 of Idaho's constitution which reads: LEGISLATURE TO ESTABLISH SYSTEM OF FREE SCHOOLS. The stability of a republican form of government depending mainly upon the intelligence of the people, it shall be the duty of the legislature of Idaho, to establish and maintain a general, uniform and thorough system of public, free common schools.

The Idaho Center for Fiscal Policy believes, "This clearly places the responsibility for the state's public schools on the shoulders of the legislature." (Find the full report at http://idahocfp.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Idaho-Public-School-Funding-1980-to-2013.pdf ).

I agree the state legislature should follow the state's constitution and fully fund education in our state but plead with local voters not to use this levy as a platform to send the legislature a message. The risk is too great for our kids. If you disagree with the trend of decreased state school funding, call or write your legislator while supporting our local schools. This levy is essential to the success of our children. Thank you for your long-term support of the Coeur d'Alene School District and please, get out and vote.

For questions and comments, please write at bprutherford@hotmail.com