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Idaho School Boards Association president urges full defense of public schools
Summary
Brian Piper, president of the Idaho School Boards Association and chair of the Madison School District board, told the Senate Education Committee that public education is essential to civic life and urged legislators to support local school governance and partnerships.
Brian Piper, president of the Idaho School Boards Association and chairman of the Madison School District Board of Trustees, told the Senate Education Committee that public education is “vital as in life giving” and urged legislators to defend public schools and support local governance.
Piper said the ISBA delegation included roughly 200 school board members, administrators and guests representing small and large districts as well as charters, and asked lawmakers to consider partnership with local boards. "Locally citizens providing governance and oversight of Idaho schools is a sacred trust we take pride in and need to support," he said.
Piper outlined four reasons to defend public education: preserving the cultural fabric necessary for democracy; ensuring educational practice follows current research; integrating students of varying learning needs; and recognizing the daily, local successes that schools produce. He said that local school boards play a role in setting vision and holding superintendents accountable.
Piper described his background as a professor at BYU–Idaho and a long-time school board member, concluding by thanking the committee for its time and support for "Idaho public education and the more than 170 local citizen school boards that provide governance and oversight of their community schools."
