BRUNEAU — The Bruneau-Grand View Joint School District will ask voters to decide whether to close Bruneau Elementary School as part of a district-wide consolidation plan. 

Trustees made the unanimous decision to put the question on the November ballot after a tense meeting that lasted until nearly midnight Tuesday. Patrons had threatened a lawsuit over the district’s proposal to close Bruneau Elementary this year and send all K-5 students to Grand View Elementary School, 19 miles away.

“We will adhere to the feedback, whether it’s to close it or whether it’s to keep it open,” said trustee Raelynn Mathews. 

Tuesday’s decision keeps Bruneau Elementary open another year, as long as the district can fill an open teaching position before the school year starts next month, and it gives Bruneau patrons time to plan for an uncertain future.

“We got the best-case scenario,” Sherry Colyer, a Bruneau resident who opposed closing the school, said after Tuesday’s meeting. 

Meanwhile, a broader debate about consolidating Bruneau-Grand View’s buildings remains unresolved. Closing Bruneau Elementary would have been an initial step, followed by closing Grand View Elementary and moving all grades to an expanded Rimrock Junior/Senior High School campus.

But patrons are divided on how to move forward, and a recent survey found that voters are unlikely to support a bond financing major facilities upgrades.

Long-running consolidation ideas renewed in recent years

Consolidation is not a new idea. Amid declining enrollment and hiring challenges, Bruneau-Grand View leaders have considered downsizing since 2014. 

District enrollment has gone from 625 students to about 250 since the mid-1990s, superintendent Jeff Blaser told the school board Tuesday. Blaser also told trustees that the district posted a job for a math teacher in February, and zero certified teachers from the United States have applied. 

In 2024, a citizen-led committee recommended a two-year, $1.3 million levy to keep all three schools open while the district drew up plans for a consolidated campus at Rimrock. The campus, which serves sixth through 12th grade, is about eight miles east of Grand View and 11 miles west of Bruneau. 

Voters passed the levy by one vote last year. Then the school board restarted discussions about closing Bruneau ahead of the the 2025-26 school year — after enrollment dipped below a 35-student baseline set by trustees. It felt like a “bait and switch,” Colyer said. 

“The trust of the patrons has been shattered,” she told the school board Tuesday.

Trustees discuss closure behind closed doors, amid lawsuit threat

Tuesday’s vote to keep the school open was unanimous, but only after a nearly three-hour conversation behind closed doors. Trustees discussed the closure and consolidation plan, along with a personnel issue, during an executive session. 

Idaho law allows public boards to meet privately “to discuss the legal ramifications of and legal options for pending litigation.” Opponents of the Bruneau closure have threatened to sue, arguing that the district didn’t follow proper procedures and deadlines when initiating the closure plan.

After voting to keep the school open in 2025-26, trustees passed a second motion to close the school prior to the 2026-27 school year. That motion was necessary for patrons to file a petition calling for a ballot question, trustees explained. The board also voted to convene a long-term planning committee after the November election. 

“We need to understand what the community wants before we start,” Mathews said.

Survey shows opposition to bond

A recent survey commissioned by the district didn’t provide clear answers on public opinion. 

Portman Square Group, a Boise-based strategic communications firm, conducted the survey over a month in May and June. The online survey, distributed via text message and social media, garnered 412 responses, 98% of which came from self-identified registered voters.

Respondents were evenly split on the consolidation plan. But just 26% said they would support a bond measure in November to finance renovations at Rimrock. More than half — 52% — said they would vote against a November bond, and 22% said they would “maybe” support it but needed more information. 

The survey — which cost the district $4,000, according to Blaser — identified four top concerns about consolidation: 

• Loss of local schools and community identity.
• Cost to renovate Rimrock into a K-12 facility.
• Tax impact of a bond. 
• Increased transportation/commute time.

Despite survey results showing unfavorable views on a bond, Blaser said a K-12 campus is still in the district’s best interest. 

“We just got to find a plan,” he said. 

The survey results weren’t surprising to Colyer. The district’s conservative voters aren’t likely to support a bond to renovate Rimrock into a K-12 building while “two perfectly good grade schools” are still functioning, she said.

Bruneau patrons weigh next steps

Bruneau-Grand View, which covers a large but sparsely populated area from the Snake River to the Nevada border, has had three schools since the 1970s. An hour’s drive southeast of Boise, the area is perhaps best-known for its recreation opportunities — the C.J. Strike Reservoir and Bruneau Sand Dunes State Park. 

But Bruneau and Grand View also serve as hubs for a robust agriculture industry, supported by family-owned farms and ranches as well as a feedlot operated by Simplot, one of Idaho’s largest employers.

Colyer, who operates a family ranch near Bruneau, said Grand View doesn’t want to lose its grade school any more than Bruneau does. 

“Whenever we hire people, they ask about schools,” she said. “When you tell them that your elementary school is 20 miles away, for some people, that’s going to be the deterrent.”

Colyer served on the Bruneau-Grand View school board for nine years during the 1990s, when her children were students. That’s about when the district started experiencing enrollment decline. Colyer attributed the dropoff to a variety of factors. Online options, open enrollment and a private school run by the local Mennonite congregation have drawn students away, she said. And new technologies in farming have meant fewer jobs and fewer children needing schooling. 

The school board’s decision gives Bruneau patrons time to consider next steps. Some have suggested splitting off from Bruneau-Grand View — “seceding from the union,” as one patron put it Tuesday. Bruneau could form a new district, or transition the Bruneau Elementary building, which first opened in the 1950s, into a charter school.  

“The best plan might be to keep both elementary schools open, possibly as charter schools,” Colyer told trustees. “If you close Bruneau, it will deteriorate within a year. While you figure it out, why not do what has worked for the last 75 years.”