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Committee holds administrator apprenticeship bill after concerns about mentoring and state coordination
Summary
The Senate Education Committee held House Bill 295 after senators and the Idaho Association of School Administrators raised concerns that an apprenticeship approach lacked required mentoring and state coordination.
The Senate Education Committee decided to hold House Bill 295 in committee after extended discussion about program design, mentoring supports and coordination with the State Department of Education.
Representative Dale Hawkins, the House sponsor, described the bill as a way to create an apprenticeship or alternate certification route to help small, rural districts recruit principals and superintendents. He said the number of unfilled administrative positions in some rural districts had grown from about a dozen to as many as 17 and that the apprenticeship idea would allow communities to develop local candidates who understand the local culture.
Heather Williams, speaking for the Idaho Association of School Administrators and the Idaho Rural Schools Association, said the associations appreciated the sponsors’ attention to the administrator pipeline but opposed the bill in its present form because it lacked a mechanism to ensure mentoring and other supports. ‘‘We are willing to work with the sponsors,’’ Williams said, but added the bill “puts the onus on our rural districts… and there isn’t a mechanism to make sure that mentoring is there.”
Senators debated procedure. A substitute motion to send the bill to the fourteenth order for amendments was moved and seconded and received mixed votes but ultimately failed. The committee then considered a motion to hold the bill in committee; that motion passed by recorded vote (6–3).
Why it matters: Sponsors and district leaders said rural districts face difficulty recruiting and retaining administrators and that an apprenticeship pathway could help. Opponents and the State’s school-administrators association urged adding explicit mentoring, governance and evaluation safeguards and suggested coordinating with work already underway at the State Board of Education and Department of Education before forwarding the bill.
The committee’s action keeps the bill in committee; sponsors indicated willingness to work with associations and the State Department to craft amendments.
