A bill to give active-duty military families priority access to public charter schools advanced to the full House Tuesday — but not without some debate. 

House Bill 163 would allow charter schools to move active-duty military applicants to the top of admissions waitlists. Charter schools have enrollment caps that often lead to lengthy waitlists.

“This bill provides greater educational stability for military children who frequently face school disruptions due to relocations,” said Rep. David Leavitt, R-Twin Falls, who is sponsoring the bill. 

During a public hearing Tuesday, two charter school administrators and two charter advocates and parents testified in support of the bill. Dana Alfaro, a military spouse, mother of three and paraprofessional at Sage International, a charter school in Boise, said that military families often live outside of charter geographic zones and get pushed to the bottom of waitlists. 

“Please allow military kids to find a spot in the charter school of their choice,” Alfaro said. “I promise they’ll be an asset to their community.”

The House Education Committee voted 12-2 to advance HB 163.

Reps. Kyle Harris, R-Lewiston, and Tony Wisniewski, R-Post Falls, opposed it. Both said they support the military but argued that it would be unfair to give military families preference at the expense of other charter school applicants. 

“These are people that are residents of the state, have been residents of the state their entire life, probably have no plans on ever leaving the state, and now we’re going to give priority to somebody that might be here for two to three years,” Harris said.

Empowering Parents expansion to be amended

A bill to expand the Empowering Parents program and add private school tuition as an eligible expense will be amended, according to the sponsor.

Sen. Dave Lent moved Tuesday to send Senate Bill 1025 to the 14th order, a procedural function that allows legislation to be amended on the Senate floor.

“We’ve received some significant input and comment that I think is valid,” said Lent, R-Idaho Falls.

The House last week cleared a competing private school choice bill. House Bill 93 is awaiting a committee hearing in the Senate.

School cellphone bill sails through Senate

The Senate unanimously passed a bill that requires schools to write up local cellphone policies.

Senate Bill 1032 — a distraction-free learning bill — gives schools a Dec. 31 deadline. It doesn’t spell out what a cellphone policy should look like.

“Locals need the autonomy to craft good policies for their local school districts,” said Sen. Treg Bernt, R-Meridian.

Cellphone policies are already widespread in Idaho schools — with mixed results. In committee and on the Senate floor, Bernt praised the West Ada School District’s cellphone policy, saying it has improved student engagement. The Coeur d’Alene School District has instituted a restrictive cellphone policy, despite heavy opposition from students and patrons.

In all, 93 school districts have written cellphone policies, after Gov. Brad Little issued a “Phone Free Learning Act” executive order that offered districts a one-time $5,000 federal grant.

With the Senate’ 34-0 vote, the bill now heads to the House.

PragerU Kids debate heads back to committee

The debate over the controversial PragerU Kids curriculum is heading back to committee.

On Tuesday morning, the Senate moved a pro-PragerU Kids resolution back to the Senate Education Committee. Committee chairman Dave Lent, R-Idaho Falls, asked the Senate to pull the resolution off the floor, in order to allow the committee to give the polarizing curriculum a full hearing.

The Senate agreed to the move unanimously.

On Monday afternoon, Senate Education approved the PragerU Kids resolution along party lines, after a brief discussion. The committee took no public comment.

The resolution isn’t binding. State superintendent Debbie Critchfield has already adopted PragerU Kids as a supplemental curriculum — making it available, for free, to any schools that choose to use it. Tribal leaders have asked Critchfield to reconsider, saying the curriculum oversimplifies historical events that have affected Native Americans.

Idaho State seeks to expand dental school partnership

A dental school partnership is popular with applicants — and Idaho State University wants to expand it.

Idaho State is seeking an additional $54,000 a year for its Idaho Dental Education Program, which would increase enrollment from 32 students to 36. Like all medical programs in Idaho, IDEP is a co-op: Students take their first year of dental school at Idaho State, and their final three years at Creighton University in Omaha, Neb.

The program typically gets 30 to 50 applicants a year, but application numbers have peaked at 120, said Jeff Ybarguen, IDEP’s program director. Ybarguen is an IDEP graduate, who also runs a dental practice in Idaho Falls.

“We have no shortage whatsoever of highly qualified applications,” Ybarguen told Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee members Tuesday.

When dental students can’t get a state-subsidized spot at IDEP, they tend to enroll in costlier programs that increase student debt, making it harder for them to return to Idaho, Ybarguen said. Between 70% and 80% of IDEP’s graduates return to Idaho.

All told, IDEP’s budget request comes to close to $2.4 million.

‘Airing of grievances?’ School board meetings bill sidetracked

A bill to require school boards to take freewheeling public comments hit a snag Wednesday.

The Senate Education Committee sent Senate Bill 1007 to the floor for amendment — although it isn’t immediately clear how the bill might be fixed.

As currently written, SB 1007 would require school boards to take public comments on any topic. Its sponsor, Sen. Cindy Carlson, R-Riggins, called the bill a “cleanup” of a 2024 law that requires a public comment period, “limited to items listed on the meeting agenda.”

Coeur d’Alene School District trustee Lesli Bjerke favored the move. She said the 2024 law actually tied the district’s hands, forcing trustees to curtail an open comment policy they’d had in place for years. “It’s worked really well in the past.”

The Idaho School Boards Association opposes the bill. Board meetings are business meetings held in public, deputy director Quinn Perry said, and an open-ended “airing of grievances” would take away from that. “It shifts the board away from conducting the public’s business.”

Committee members debated their next move.

Sen. Christy Zito, R-Mountain Home, wanted the committee to endorse the bill. “I don’t believe a well-run meeting will turn into a free-for-all.”

Her motion to send the bill to the floor for a vote died without a second. Moments later, the committee voted to send the bill to the Senate floor for amendments.