Two Cassia County School District administrators submitted their resignations to trustees during a school board meeting this week, citing administrative changes, staff reductions and sluggish communications.

The resignations by administrators Kim Bedke and Steve Copmann occurred during a public comment period of the annual board budget hearing, just before trustees approved a budget of $58.7 million, about $200,000 bigger than the previous year. Drops in enrollment and therefore state funding led trustees to make job cuts.

Constituents filled the boardroom on Monday night and expressed frustration with trustees’ efforts to communicate those cuts.

“I don’t like finding out on Facebook what the budget problem is,” said Burley resident Jerri Tegan in her public comment.

Cassia County voters approved a $7 million, two-year supplemental levy in May. The levy helps keep district funding flat while it loses millions in state funding due to enrollment declines — elementary classes shrank an average of almost 10% since the prior year, according to a presentation by the district’s Director of Fiscal Affairs, Chris James.

To comply with a $2 million drop in state funding, trustees sliced admin duties and cut 17 teachers and 10 classified positions, largely by attrition.

“We’ve tried hard: we’ve got a balanced budget, we don’t have much in our contingency reserve,” James told Idaho Education News in an interview a day after the board meeting.

How district leaders communicated those job eliminations became a point of contention for staff and community members, who took to public comment at Monday night’s budget hearing.

One of the administrative cuts involved transforming a vice principal role at Burley Junior High into a dual role: vice principal and counselor. Current Burley Junior High Counselor Elizabeth Castaneda told trustees she disagrees with the change on an ethical basis.

“As a school counselor, I am not prepared and I don’t want to be, ethically, in charge of discipline,” Castaneda said. “If a counselor takes on discipline, they just rupture their rapport with students.”

‘You’re setting us up for failure’

The next two employees to take the stand after Castaneda delivered tearful comments — and letters of resignation.

Bedke, the district’s Director of Federal Programs, said she received a mysterious letter from the board informing her she would no longer be the district’s director of federal programs and would be moved into a new role.

“I have not been given a clear understanding of my future responsibility,” Bedke told trustees.

The new job, she said, came with a full salary, even though the role of “RTI Coordinator” was once a subset of her administrative job.

“This comes at a time when our district just eliminated 18 teaching positions,” Bedke said. “A new position has been created for me, and I retain my salary? How can I accept this?”

Bedke submitted her letter of resignation, effective July 1. An attendee began applauding Bedke, but Board Chair Ryan Cranney suppressed them with a warning.

Burley High Principal Copmann followed Bedke.

“We had meetings to discuss teacher cuts — no discussions to talk about admin changes, they were imposed,” Copmann said.

In an effort to save money, trustees shuffled administrative appointments around, including reducing administrator hours at certain buildings. Part of the approved budget includes cutting some administrators to half time.

“The board cut our assistant principal to half time in a school with over 550 kids,” Copmann told trustees. “Never in 31 years have we had a half time principal. You’re setting us up for failure.”

Copmann submitted his resignation, effective at the end of June.

Not all comments were critical. A special education teacher who didn’t state her name said the board is doing its due diligence managing the budget and making the tough decisions required of leaders.

“If we’re being cut and our funding’s being cut, the only people we can hold accountable is ourselves, because we’re not voicing it,” the teacher said. “So when it comes down to it, none of these people are bad men, none of them are bad women. But they’re doing what we have to do.”

Roland Bott, Principal at Declo High, also gave a comment, requesting that trustees consider allowing him to stay at Declo High instead of making him the district’s transportation director — a decision he said trustees never asked him about.

Below-average test scores

In other news, trustees discussed the district’s below-average Idaho Standards Achievement Test (ISAT) scores. Superintendent Sandra Miller said she met with content specialists who said the district’s ISAT scores could be significantly higher with more student buy-in.

Cassia County is 20% below state average in math, 9% below average in English and 20% below average in science.

Trustees listened to a proposal that would require students to score proficiently on the ISAT in order to graduate, a model used by nearby Twin Falls School District. Trustees discussed the idea but didn’t vote on a policy.

“To have a test that so much stake is built into,” said Trustee Sanie Baker, “At the state level, they’re looking at the results, when there is little to no accountability at our level — I’m all about accountability. … I think this is a great program. I hope to follow through with this.”