The leadership shuffle in Idaho schools peaks each spring during prime hiring season, as trustees seek the most qualified candidates.  

EdNews tracks it all. Here are eight of the first openings. 

We’ll continue to update this story in the months to come. If you know of any openings or hires that we missed, let us know. 

Boise 

Leaving: Superintendent Coby Dennis will retire this summer. 

Taking over: Longtime Boise educator Lisa Roberts, becoming the district’s first female superintendent. 

Fremont County

Leaving: Dave Marotz, who was serving as interim superintendent.

Taking over: Brandon Farris, who is currently the principal at Wyoming’s Clear Creek Middle School, will start as superintendent this summer. Originally from Jerome, Farris told EastIdahoNews.com that becoming a superintendent “is a dream come true.”

“Dr. Farris brings a wealth of experience and dedication to education, and we look forward to the positive impact he will make on our school district,” a district announcement read. 

South Lemhi

Leaving: Superintendent Kevin Ramsey will stay with the district, but take on a different role this summer. 

Taking over: The position is currently advertised on edjobsidaho.com. 

Valley

Leaving: Former Superintendent Jennifer Jacobson resigned in November following a disagreement with the board of trustees. Eric Anderson is acting as interim superintendent. 

Taking over: The position is currently advertised on edjobsidaho.com. 

Jerome

Leaving: Superintendent Pat Charlton will retire this summer. 

“I’ve been at this business for a long time, this is my 45th year in education and my 39th year as an administrator, and so I decided it’s probably time to start enjoying my grandkids and my family, and as well as some of my passions like skiing and so forth,” Charlton told kmvt.com.

Taking over: The position has not been filled yet. 

New Plymouth

Leaving: Superintendent David Sotutu resigned at the end of the 2022-2023 school year, according to argusobserver.com.

In his resignation letter, which was obtained by the Argus Observer, Sotutu cited Idaho’s political climate as a reason for leaving: “While our school district and community have been very supportive of our students and educators, the state of Idaho’s hostility towards public education is suffocating,” he wrote. 

Taking over: Wil Overgaard is the district’s interim superintendent, who came out of retirement to help. It’s the second time he’s done so, having previously come out of retirement to serve as interim superintendent at Buhl School District. 

He said his returns to leadership speak to the lack of qualified superintendents in Idaho: “There’s a shortage, there’s no question.”

On top of that, New Plymouth School District’s opening came after prime superintendent hiring season, which was a factor.

The position is now open again, and is being advertised on the Idaho School Boards Association website. 

Shelley

Leaving: Chad Williams will become the Idaho High School Activities Association’s executive director this summer, replacing Ty Jones, who will retire. 

“I look forward to the journey ahead and the positive impact we can make together,” he said in a press release. “My primary focus is on fostering relationships across Idaho, with the ultimate goal of offering students enriching opportunities for learning, personal growth, and excellence through extracurricular activities.”

Taking over: The position is currently advertised on edjobsidaho.com. 

Fruitland

Leaving: Current Superintendent Lyle Bailey will retire this summer.

Taking over: The position is currently advertised on the Idaho School Boards Association website. 

Idaho EdNews data analyst Randy Schrader contributed to this report. 

“Be prepared for a May 21 election,” Nick Miller, a lawyer and partner at Hawley Troxell, advised trustees in a work session presentation last week. 

But a decision on whether to run a ballot measure, or what kind (a bond or plant facilities levy), will likely have to wait until March, due to “Legislative Actions,” Miller advised. 

The 2024 Legislature is in session for about two more months. A key issue: whether Gov. Brad Little’s proposal to invest $2 billion in school facilities over the next decade has enough support from lawmakers, and if so, at what cost. 

According to Miller’s presentation, House Speaker Mike Moyle, R-Star, might attach the condition that the August school election be killed. That comes after the March school election was slashed last session, a provision included in House Bill 292, which provided schools with $100 million to apply to bonds or levies and lower tax impacts. 

There’s also the possibility — according to Miller — that the state’s bond subsidy (financial assistance that offsets bonds’ costs for qualifying districts) could “transfer over” to the governor’s funding proposal, reducing its impact. 

Another complication: how to communicate with taxpayers about how HB 292 impacts them.

The Pocatello/Chubbuck School District recently opted to use the new law as an opportunity to present its proposed $45 million bond, for improvements at two high schools, as having a “net zero impact.” But a local government watchdog group criticized that messaging as misleading, arguing that it didn’t make clear that taxpayers would save money if the bond measure failed. 

Hawley Troxell counseled Pocatello/Chubbuck on that failed bond attempt, and Miller acknowledged in his presentation that the messaging “arguably backfired.” 

“Better view now is to not refer to HB 292 funds on the Ballot at all,” Miller’s presentation said. “Net … tax burden increases with a bond so be up front and say so.”

Miller advised trustees to keep ballot language to the required minimum. 

Another wrinkle trustees are facing: their two-year, $13.6 million supplemental levy expires in summer 2025. Miller advised they ask for another levy at the May 2025 election. 

Trustees will continue the discussion over how to move forward at the next work session, though it’s unclear when that will take place. 

EdNews reached out to Idaho Falls Board Chair Hillary Radcliffe Tuesday morning for comment on possible next steps, but did not immediately hear back. We will update this story if more information becomes available.

It was an “organic protest” that was not organized by the Jerome Education Association, according to Co-President Darren Olsen. But he said some members did participate, and the walkout was “understandable.”

“(It) reflects deep frustration for administration’s lack of consideration for educators’ expert professional perspective for the education offered to Jerome students and the impact that those decisions have on educators themselves,” Olsen wrote in a prepared statement.

Pat Charlton, Jerome’s superintendent, said that while the absences were primarily about the five-day week decision, there were other factors; teachers also wanted to express their stress and dissatisfaction over increasing class sizes, more student misbehavior than ever before, and growing responsibilities. 

Charlton said he had sensed teachers’ stress, and thought a move to a four-day week might be one possible way to improve morale.

Jerome school leaders spent months exploring the idea, including via a stakeholder committee, a survey, and a town hall meeting. 

Most of the feedback was positive, so ahead of a Jan. 23 school board meeting, Charlton planned to recommend that trustees adopt a four-day week. But as the meeting neared, opposition to the change suddenly intensified.

“I did not anticipate the amount of pushback that came at the end,” Charlton said.

Community members, parents, and some teachers voiced concerns about the potential impacts of a four-day week on the most vulnerable populations, including special education students and those from low-income families. It could increase food insecurity for the latter, for example, and would put financial pressure on working parents to pay for daycare. 

A summary of a stakeholder meeting held about a week before the board decision listed more four-day week cons than pros.

“So as all that came just before the board meeting, I determined it was really in the best interest of the school board and the district not to go away from the five-day schedule at this time,” Charlton said. “The board was in a no-win situation; either way they were going to upset somebody.”

He advised trustees to vote against the four-day week — and they did, unanimously. 

Kailan Pope, the parent of a Jerome student, was frustrated with that choice: “Nothing was said that would indicate why they changed so suddenly,” she said. “Leaves a lot of questions for everyone.”

When told about Charlton’s concerns, she said there were options for vulnerable student populations, such as going to the local Boys & Girls Club on Fridays. 

Pope is in favor of a four-day week because it would allow for “more quality family time together” and “opportunities to learn in ways that the school cannot provide.”

As of Monday afternoon, school was planned to be back in session Tuesday. Pope said she hopes the walkout will “keep the discussion going.”

Olsen said the local teachers’ union is “eager to help bridge the gap between educators and the district to ensure that every student in Jerome receives the education they deserve.”

In response to the protest, Charlton plans to host listening sessions to gather feedback and then determine next steps. He added that board members “sincerely want to take steps to improve the district and do whatever it takes to reduce the level of stress that our teachers have right now.”

Not as many Idaho students are graduating on time as state education leaders would like, but some schools have met and exceeded those high hopes, and others are closing in. 

EdNews combed recently-released data from the Idaho Department of Education to identify the schools that are at the top, exceeding the statewide average (81% in 2023), and sometimes, even the lofty state goal (95%). 

Read on to find out which schools have the greatest percentage of students earning a high school diploma on time. 

A few things to keep in mind before you dig into the data:

• Senior class size vs. four-year cohort size: We’ve included the four-year cohort size for each school. A cohort is different than the senior class size, partly because it includes students who drop out between freshman and senior year.
  • Here’s how the IDE defines a cohort: “Students who are entering grade 9 for the first time form a cohort that is subsequently ‘adjusted’ by adding any students who transfer into the school during the next four years and subtracting any students who transfer out, immigrate to another country, or pass away during that same time period.”
• Our categories: There are myriad possible ways to consider and arrange data. We’ve done so in the way we thought fairest, trying to compare the most similar schools, according to size and type. 
• An imperfect comparison: It’s still an imperfect comparison; it doesn’t account for the many other differences between schools, such as location, student demographics, the school’s level of funding, and more. It’s just intended to be a glimpse into the data. 
• Find your school or district here: You can also search the entire dataset (hit “control F” on the document and a search bar will appear) to find your school if it’s not listed here, or use it to compile the data in different ways. 

Here are the standouts, as sorted by:

• Small traditional schools; large traditional schools; small nontraditional schools; and large nontraditional schools. 

Top small traditional schools (cohorts fewer than 100)

Top large traditional schools (cohorts of 100 or more)

Top small nontraditional (charter, magnet, online, alternative) schools (cohorts fewer than 40)

Top large nontraditional (charter, magnet, online, alternative) schools (cohorts of 40 or more)

Data analyst Randy Schrader contributed to this report. 

Straightforward answers to those questions are unlikely anytime soon. 

“This feels like a chicken-and-egg scenario,” Pocatello/Chubbuck Trustee Heather Clarke said at a special meeting Tuesday. 

The district’s insurance provider, Idaho Counties Risk Management Program or ICRMP, can’t say exactly how much it will cover until it has plans for the rebuild in hand (a rough estimate is that the total will be over $20 million). But trustees — and some Pocatello voters — want definitive answers from the insurance company before they decide how to move forward. 

Simply put, the parties seem to be at an impasse. 

“We’re as close as we can get until we take this next step of going into the design and planning phase,” Seth McClure, an independent insurance adjuster hired by ICRMP, told trustees Tuesday. 

For their part, trustees have spent months debating whether to ask taxpayers to chip in (again) for the Highland rebuild, to cover upgrades that go beyond what ICRMP will fund. 

Moving forward has become a saga, and it’s far from over. As McClure told trustees: “Pack your patience.”

While there are no hard-and-fast answers yet, McClure did illuminate some new details about the work going on behind the scenes of the catastrophe that caught statewide attention last spring. Here’s what we know.

Insurance after the fire: “What you had is what you get”

The gist of an hours-long presentation McClure gave to Pocatello trustees: “What you had is what you get.”

There’s a phrase that goes along with that, which Pocatello/Chubbuck School District’s director of business operations, Jonathan Balls, has memorized by now: “like, kind and quality.”

It means that the insurance will only pay to restore Highland’s damaged D-wing to the closest approximation of what existed before the fire. Affected gyms and classrooms will remain the same size, be rebuilt with similar materials, and include similar contents — unless doing so would violate code or if the materials are now obsolete. For example, if there were “massive wood ceiling trusses” in place before the fire, those would likely be rebuilt with updated materials. 

Updates and improvements will only be paid for if code requires them. If trustees want to take this opportunity to upgrade and improve the school, that will have to come from district coffers. 

But now’s the time to make changes, McClure advised trustees, “rather than saying, oh we’ll rebuild it as is, but then 10 years from now you knock down to rebuild something completely new.” 

Some good news: the district’s deductible is “insanely small,” at $2,500, McClure said. “You’re really fortunate to have that.”

He anticipates ICRMP will end up covering more than $20 million toward the rebuild. 

Getting these answers, however hazy or incomplete, has taken months of work and oversight from dozens of insurance companies. 

“Big loss, big exposure, lots of dollars:” Behind the scenes of a monumental insurance claim

April 21, 2023. 

McClure will never forget that day, when a 6:30 a.m. phone call informed him of the fire blazing at Highland High: “I knew we were dealing with something big.”

It triggered investigations by a handful of agencies and companies. Ultimately, it was ruled accidental, with no entity held liable. 

From there, ICRMP started working to catalog and assess the losses — efforts which have been overseen by dozens of companies. 

It’s a major claim, with “big loss, big exposure, and lots of dollars.” So ICRMP has a backup: it insures itself with County Reinsurance Limited. And County Reinsurance has its own backup — more than 20 different companies, known as an insurance market. “Each take a piece of the pie” to cover the expenses, McClure said. 

All told, “there’s 20-25 different sets of eyes looking at everything.”

And the insurance company has called in a slew of experts, including:

• A fire investigator
• A structural engineer
• A building consultant
• A contents consultant
• A forensic accountant

It’s a complicated process, but “there’s a rhyme and a reason and a method to the madness,” McClure said. 

At the meeting, Board Chair Deanna Judy pushed for “straightforward answers,” and expressed frustration at having to make decisions without them.

“We have kids that need a place to be,” she said. 

Trustees will have to decide by late March, when ballot language is due, if they will run another bond ask in May. 

Last spring, only 64% of the state’s juniors took the college entrance exam on the school-sponsored SAT Day.  In 2022, 97% took the exam.

SAT exams are no longer required, but all schools must offer them 

—Districts and charters can choose to require the exam “to enforce participation at their discretion,” even though the state does not require them (the state’s requirements are the minimum).
—Since 2020, many colleges and universities have dropped SAT and ACT scores as an admission requirement, though students can often opt to include them in their applications.
—Still worth taking? The Idaho Department of Education advises students that “high scores on college entrance exams can help make a student’s application for scholarships or college admission more competitive.”
—For more information on the SAT and other exams, check out our Spelling it Out. 

At the same time, scores jumped — 34% of test takers met both benchmarks on the exam, an increase from 28% the year prior. Reaching the benchmarks indicates college readiness in two content areas: reading and writing, and math. 

The decline in participation comes after the State Board of Education stopped mandating that Idaho students take a college entrance exam to graduate, as was the case in pre-Covid years. 

Because the exams are no longer required, statewide SAT results were not publicly shared in 2023, like they usually are. 

EdNews requested the 2023 SAT Day results at the end of November, and did not receive them for another two months. Maggie Reynolds, a spokesperson for the IDE, said the delay was due to difficulty obtaining the data from the College Board. 

Those results show that while participation hit a low, scores are the highest they’ve been in five years. 

For a complete dataset on SAT Day performance by district, go here. For a complete dataset on SAT Day performance by school, go here.

Statewide SAT scores since 2019

Scores climbed this year, as greater percentages of students met academic benchmarks. Here’s a look at SAT scores and participation over the past five years.

Note: The 2023 SAT Day results provided by College Board have not been verified (i.e., “matched” to existing student enrollment records) by the Idaho Department of Education. The verification process improves the data quality, but does not drastically change it.

*evidence-based reading and writing

SAT Day data, by the numbers:

• 16,000: the number of Idaho juniors who took the exam on SAT Day in 2023. 
• 25,000: the number of Idaho juniors in 2023. 
• 5,500: the number of test-takers who met both benchmarks
• 6,100: the number of test-takers who met no benchmarks
• $1.2 million: the cost to taxpayers to administer the SAT in 2023

Top-scoring districts and charters

The districts and charters below had the greatest percentage of students meeting both SAT benchmarks in the state. They all also had relatively small numbers of test-takers. 

A number of districts’ and charters’ data was redacted, so not all are represented here.

Performance of districts with highest number of test takers

Here’s a look at SAT performance at the districts with the greatest number of test-takers. 

This year’s SAT School Day in Idaho will only be offered digitally for the first time, and will occur sometime between March 4 and April 26. 

Idaho Education News data analyst Randy Schrader contributed to this report. 

All told, nearly 21,000 students graduated in four years, and about 4,800 did not. 

Still, 2023’s four-year graduation rate remains far short of the state goal: that nearly 95% of students earn a high school diploma on time. It also holds with a familiar pattern — four-year graduation rates have hovered between about 80% and 82% since 2016. 

Four-year graduation rates 

The Idaho Department of Education’s recently-released data also shows that:

• At-risk student populations had lower graduation rates than their peers
• More than 50 districts and local education agencies had fewer than 81% of students graduate on time
• More than 100 traditional schools and charters had fewer than 81% of students graduate on time

Nationally, Idaho has one of the lowest four-year graduation rates. In 2022, it was ranked 47th, outpacing only Alaska, Arizona, and New Mexico, according to an EdNews compilation of data from state departments of education. Nationwide rankings from 2023 are not yet available. 

Read on for a closer look at the districts and charters with the highest and lowest graduation rates, and to see which student populations did not graduate on pace with peers. 

Highest and lowest graduation rates, by districts and charters

The charts below show the districts and local education agencies with the state’s highest and lowest graduation rates. As you look at the data, keep in mind that cohort sizes are not accounted for (some districts have small student populations, so their data skews easily). 

For a complete dataset, go here. 

Traditional and non-traditional (charter) districts with the highest four-year graduation rates

Traditional and nontraditional (charter) districts with lowest four-year graduation rates

Large traditional districts, ranked

This table ranks the state’s ten largest districts from highest four-year graduation rate to lowest. 

At-risk student groups are less likely to graduate on time, data shows

Students in foster care, with disabilities, or who are homeless were least likely to graduate on time in 2023, according to the IDE data.

Those student groups were among others (listed below) with four-year graduation rates lower than the state average. 

For some student groups, the State Board of Education sets different four-year graduation goals than it does for the general population. In each of those cases below, the student groups were far from achieving the target rate. 

Idaho Education News data analyst Randy Schrader contributed to this report.

“It’s exciting coming to the table for this important work,” said Joyce McFarland, the education manager for the Nez Perce tribe. “I don’t think we’ve ever had the chance to have a conversation like this … I’m eager to see what this collaboration yields for Idaho’s American Indian students.”

Tribal education leaders from across the state will meet with partners at the State Board of Education and Idaho Department of Education quarterly for the next five years. The first meeting took place in December. 

Jessica James, education program manager for the Shoshone-Bannock tribes, said that though many tribal schools are ranked low when it comes to performance, tribal leaders have felt that their voices haven’t always been heard in the search for solutions.

“This program gives tribes a more meaningful role in these conversations, especially for tribal children on tribal lands,” she said.

The goals of the collaboration include improving efforts to:

• Consult tribes: Work with education agencies to increase, track, and ensure meaningful tribal consultation (a federal requirement)
• Learn from each other: Create two-way professional development between the agencies and tribal education leaders
• Increase self-identification: Understand the barriers to self-identification of Native American students and explore new ways to encourage self-identification (which is “essential to access available services and ensure more accurate data of student progress,  according to a press release from the IDE)
• Ensure accurate, actionable data: Ensure that assessment data collection provides accurate information that is actionable at both the statewide and educator levels

The collaboration will also aim to build partnerships with districts and charters on the tribal homelands of the Coeur d’Alene, Nez Perce, and Shoshone-Bannock tribes.

“American Indian and Alaskan Native students have unique educational needs,” McFarland said. “This grant is a step towards giving tribes a more significant role in identifying solutions for improving academic achievement of tribal students.”

The Nez Perce tribe was the lead applicant for the federal Department of Education grant, which was one of four such awards given in 2023. McFarland, James, and Christine Meyer, director of education for the Coeur d’Alene tribe, worked together on the grant application and implementation. 

The group will meet again in early March. 

Further reading: Take a look at EdNews’ special series, “Still Here: Tribes fight to be seen in Idaho classrooms”

Pocatello/Chubbuck trustees are considering running another ballot measure, but want to prove they’ve done all they can to drop the price tag and find other solutions first.

At a board meeting Tuesday, trustees discussed how they could reduce a potential ask, with options ranging from seeking corporate sponsorships to selling unused land.

And they discussed what would happen if a second bond ask failed, or if they tried to rebuild with just insurance monies — an option some taxpayers, including newly-elected Trustee Raymond Knoff, have pushed for. 

But insurance would only cover restoring the 1960s-era school as it was, with the exception of some updates to adhere to modern building codes. The new updates, including incorporating ADA accessibility, are needed but would cause complications — like rendering obsolete a downstairs weight room that could only be accessed via stairs. 

“We’ll just have another Band-aid solution if we just replace with insurance,” Trustee Heather Clarke said. 

Knoff, who has previously advocated for using the insurance money to rebuild and giving taxpayers a break, was silent during the discussion. 

By late March, trustees will have to make a decision about whether to go to voters in May, and how much to ask for if so. They’ll also have to decide whether to request financing for improvements to Century High’s gyms, as they did with the first bond ask. 

Their conversations on how to restore the school come as Gov. Brad Little is pushing for lawmakers to invest $2 billion in school facilities statewide over the next decade. Wednesday, he made an appearance at Highland to tout his ideas and highlights from his State of the State address.

For now, students are learning in a cramped building, and traveling off campus for classes and practices that have been outsourced to churches and Idaho State University. Even if a bond measure passed in May, a restored and improved school would be years away from completion. 

In the foreground of Tuesday’s conversation about a path forward was a recently-released architectural analysis that found Highland to be uninviting and in need of improvement, primarily due to its age. 

The Design West report, which was conducted in August, listed a number of issues, including:

• Uninviting environment: The high school is lacking when it comes to a “vibrant, engaging educational experience,” the report found. “More could be done to create more inspiring learning places especially, in the classrooms, using colors, materials, and finishes to create a more welcoming and engaging environment.”
• Undersized auditorium: The auditorium is undersized and “any attempt to enlarge (it) would probably prove to be impractical.” Plus its stage and control booth needed to be improved. “The design at present is austere, with very old beyond life cycle finishes,” the report found. 
• Lack of ADA accessibility: Certain parts of the building are not ADA accessible which “can expose the district to lawsuits since it is considered a civil right legislation and not simply a code issue.”
• Asbestos risk: Some of the school’s older tile may have asbestos.
• Small, outdated, and ‘extremely old’: The school has limited storage space; small janitorial spaces; an outdated counseling center; and science rooms that are “extremely old with inadequate millwork for a science curriculum”; whiteboards and bulletin boards that are “very old and should be replaced”.
• Questionable roof: A roof that may “become overstressed during a significant snow event,” and “may not survive a seismic event.” 

“There’s a huge need here,” Trustee Deanna Judy said Tuesday. “I feel like this report … shows that need really dramatically.”

To address it, “our first choice is not to tax,” Judy said, before floating the idea of seeking donations and sponsorships. “I want to show that we are doing everything we can” before resorting to another ballot measure.

No decisions were made at the meeting, and trustees plan to continue talks at coming work sessions.

On one such occasion, she checked out a fantasy series by Sarah J. Maas. The books’  “powerful female main character” who perseveres against the odds inspired and uplifted the Rocky Mountain High junior.

Last month, two of those books were among 10 quietly pulled from West Ada school library shelves after a private meeting among administrators. 

“It made me feel really helpless,” Lanzara said. 

She’s not alone. 

West Ada librarians and students say they’re frustrated and disheartened after district leaders removed the books without considering their perspectives, under an unusual policy that gives the superintendent, or an otherwise designated district administrator, wide latitude to remove books.

“It leaves a very bad taste in my mouth,” Annabelle Jenkins, a senior at Idaho Fine Arts Academy, said. “We need to feel heard, we need to feel involved.”

West Ada leaders held another closed-door meeting last week to consider removing more books from a list of 44 that are under fire based on ratings created by a group of “concerned parents” in Brevard County, Florida. 

Niki Scheppers, the district’s spokesperson, said no decisions were made. 

Stakeholders in West Ada schools say the book removal policy goes too far, and fear that not just books — but libraries and free-thinking — are under attack. District leaders say the policy is an effort to proactively get inappropriate materials off of shelves, and to do so as quickly as possible. They also say they’re listening to concerns and reviewing procedures. 

Statewide, school leaders are paying attention; West Ada’s policies often set a precedent. 

Pushback against the book removals in Idaho’s largest school district comes as legislators have introduced multiple bills that would impose harsh consequences — including closure and fines — for libraries that allow minors to access books deemed “objectionable” or “harmful.”

“More than just books are under attack, libraries themselves are under attack,” Lanzara said. 

Monday, hundreds gathered at the Capitol to weigh in on House Bill 384, which would require librarians to relocate books that patrons deem objectionable to an adults-only section or face a civil lawsuit. Most testified against the bill, but it still advanced out of committee. 

West Ada’s unusual book removal policy places power in superintendent’s hands to expedite removals

West Ada’s book removal policy includes an unusual clause that allows for a “district administrative review,” which essentially gives Superintendent Derek Bub (or another designee) the ultimate say over which books are kept or removed.

He can decide to review a book, facilitate a meeting about it, then pull it from every library in the district. While the policy permits stakeholders to voice concerns with Bub’s choices, he is not required to respond or take any action.

“You could say it’s a dead end,” said Jonathan Schoenfelder, a former library aide at Renaissance High who felt comfortable speaking on the record because he resigned last month.

That’s in contrast to book removal policies at other large districts, including Boise, Bonneville, and Nampa. In those districts:

• The policies are designed for parents or patrons to initiate book challenges, as opposed to the superintendent. 
• A book review committee must have a majority vote to remove a text (so multiple people make the decision).
• Appeals processes are established. 
• Final decisions after appeals rest with trustees (and become public). 

When a West Ada parent or patron complains about a book, the district’s policy is similar to that of its peers. But the administrative review clause sidesteps most of those procedures in order to expedite the removal of books with content deemed illicit or inappropriate, Scheppers said. Plus, the policy means district leaders don’t have to wait for patrons to request a book’s removal, and can proactively start the process themselves.

Schoenfelder, who left West Ada for a position as a university librarian in Pennsylvania, said the process doesn’t represent “very good librarianship.”

The district did invite a few librarians to participate in its private December meeting, where the decision to pull 10 books was made. They all declined. 

Here’s how the process, called administrative review, works:
— Initiate the review: The superintendent can call for a review of books at any time. He will then schedule a meeting with “the most appropriate” district employee.
— Meeting and decision: A decision will be made at the meeting, which can be applied districtwide “at the discretion of the Superintendent or designee.” Removed books are placed on the “Declined list.”
— Input: Concerns about the decision should be made in writing to the superintendent and three other district administrators. At that point, “the Superintendent will make a final decision regarding the text/learning resources.”

Librarians feel their professional opinions are not respected or taken into consideration at such meetings, Schoenfelder said, so they have stopped participating. A second West Ada librarian, who asked to remain anonymous due to fears of repercussions, confirmed that. 

“It can feel disappointing and demoralizing when our voices aren’t well-heard, or when policies are created without much input from secondary school librarians,” said Schoenfelder.

“Despite (librarians’) current decision not to participate, we remain open to continued dialogue and collaboration,” Scheppers wrote in a statement. “We value the expertise of librarians, and their input is essential to our collective success.”

In December, Schoenfelder wrote to Bub and administrators to voice his concerns about the removals. 

“This is bad pedagogy and speaks very poorly to the direction the West Ada School District is headed,” he wrote, urging Bub to restore the pulled titles — especially Allen Ginsberg’s “Collected Poems,” a book Schoenfelder read and connected with in high school. 

He called the administrative review process “poorly conceived and badly bungled” and said it should be “remade through a collaborative process with actual school librarian input.”

The recent removals set a dangerous precedent, Schoenfelder told EdNews.

“We’re way past the slippery slope,” he said. “We’re now in a full-blown process where (administrators) feel empowered to just cut out swaths of books without talking to the school board about it. And so we’ve slipped down the slope, you might say.” 

Scheppers said the district is “actively reviewing our current procedures and seeking ways to enhance transparency in the book removal process. We acknowledge that open dialogue is crucial in fostering a supportive and inclusive learning environment.”

West Ada student: “Libraries are not only resources, they are refuges.”

Lanzara and Jenkins, who attend different West Ada schools and do not know each other, have been pleading with adults to hear them out.

“I think we’re only listening to one perspective right now, and that’s what’s causing a lot of this harm,” Lanzara said. 

Jenkins said the review process “shut the student involvement out of that conversation.”  She believes kids should have a voice, even if adults make the final decision. 

Scheppers said district leaders are taking student feedback seriously: “We understand the importance of transparency in decisions that impact our students’ educational experience, especially in matters as significant as the removal of books from our district’s libraries.”

The teens said it’s not just books that need protecting, but libraries as a whole.

Lanzara said she keeps hearing adults say that kids no longer read or care about libraries: “I want adults to know that kids are actively reading … The library is a safe place for a lot of students. If you have anxiety, you can go there and de-stress.”

“Libraries for me have always represented safe spaces for creativity and exploration,” said Jenkins, who aspires to become a librarian. “Libraries are not only resources, they are refuges, especially for children.”

During her freshman year, which fell during the height of Covid, Jenkins was lonely and scared — so she went to the library. 

“In a school they’re absolutely vital to students’ mental health,” she said. “I cannot imagine my childhood without a library or without books, or without knowing that I had the possibility to explore different worlds.”

Scheppers said West Ada’s “commitment to preserving the traditional library experience remains strong.”