State superintendent candidates speak at Republican forum

COEUR d’ALENE — Three candidates in the Republican primary for state Superintendent of Public Instruction fielded questions in Coeur d'Alene on Thursday.

Branden Durst, Debbie Critchfield and incumbent state Superintendent Sherri Ybarra spoke at a forum hosted by the Kootenai County Republican Women Federated at the Best Western Plus Coeur d'Alene Inn before about 200 people.

Subjects included critical race theory, graduation requirements and mental health.

Each emphasized their qualifications for the job to oversee the state's public education system.

“I am the best-prepared superintendent in the nation as measured by my depth of background,” Ybarra said.

Ybarra holds three education degrees. She said she has taken “marching orders” from her constituents and has done what she was told to do.

“You were worried about the wearing away of our Republican values and principles,” Ybarra said. “I am the person who got your kids back in school with my in-person learning bill.”

Ybarra’s platform is focused on defining social-emotional learning and combating critical race theory. School safety and parental involvement rank high on Ybarra’s priority list.

“We’re not interested, in our classrooms in K-12, in racial identities or artificial equity. We’re not interested in just communities,” Ybarra said.

For Ybarra, social emotional learning is closely aligned with classroom safety. She said the discussion must include mental health issues, like depression, drug addiction and suicide.

She supports empowerment of parents, and has created parental involvement and student advisory councils. She’s working on a “tool kit” for parents, a set of “practical strategies to get re-engaged” with their children.

“During the pandemic they were looking over their kids’ shoulders and were not happy with what they saw,” Ybarra said.

Ybarra closed with an anecdote from the 1864 presidential election.

“President Lincoln was challenged vigorously for his re-election,” Ybarra said. “He looked at the people and he said, ‘you don’t change horses in midstream.”

Durst, of Boise, said he has spent more time in Kootenai County than any other candidate since the start of his campaign.

“When I serve as your state superintendent, I’m going to be here all the time,” Durst said. “Not just when I’m running for re-election.”

Durst said his five children are his motivation.

“I’ve spent the last 24 months frustrated to heck, about what was going on in our schools,” Durst said. “Seeing things happen had me very concerned about what my children were being told, and what they were being taught.”

Durst has served on the state Legislature, in the House and the Senate, and was on the education committee. His campaign is focused on three primary issues: obliterating Common Core and critical race theory and reinforcing parental rights, while diminishing what he views as routine “indoctrination” of students by teachers, staff and unions, he said.

Common Core is an “insidious problem” and is intentionally designed to make parents appear to be incompetent in the eyes of their kids, Durst said.

“This is a wedge being driven between children and their parents,” Durst said.

Durst said CRT is being taught in Idaho schools and he plans to end it, “once and for all."

Durst proposes to “tell teachers and post-secondary faculty that if they are going to continue to indoctrinate our kids, they’re going to lose their ability to work for the state of Idaho.”

Durst’s comments elicited applause from the crowd.

He said he is a licensed pastor and has a master’s degree in public policy.

“I know the evil that’s on the other side, I looked it in the face, I’ve worked with it, and it can't be changed," Durst said. "We have a responsibility as a community to protect our kids from that.”

Critchfield, who lives in Oakley in Cassia County, said she has an understanding of the “diversity and uniqueness” of Idaho.

She chaired Gov. Brad Little’s education task force several years ago and was instrumental in getting kids back into school, she said.

“This is not the time for sound bites or political victory laps,” Critchfield said. “It’s a disservice to you and to the students of Idaho, to stand up here and represent things that are not accurate.”

Local control is paramount to Critchfield’s campaign, as local boards are accountable to local people, she said.

“We need to design our system around real accountability, not around measurements, reporting and data,” Critchfield said.

She said the learning environment should teach children how to think, not what to think. She proposes graduation requirements that include personal management and financial literacy.

Several years ago, she partnered with the College of Southern Idaho and local businesses to create apprenticeships for students.

“We want them to see where they can be successful," she said.

Suicide prevention work and supporting the emotional needs of students are important, she said. In Cassia County, Critchfield helped create a support line, separate from the school system, to call when they have a child in distress.

“Unfortunately in Idaho there are two places parents can turn now: One is to law enforcement and the other is the emergency room," she said. "Those are not the solutions.”

Critchfield said she opposes CRT in schools.

“We’re not midstream,” Critchfield said. “We are at a wonderful place where we recognize what the issues are, we know where we want to go and you need a leader that’s going to be able to put all those things together and take us there.”

The primary is scheduled May 17. The general election is scheduled Nov. 8.