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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Eye On Boise

Luna: Obama back-to-school speech was ‘appropriate and timely’

Idaho state Superintendent of Schools Tom Luna watched President Barack Obama's back-to-school speech today with a classroom full of 8th graders at Fairmont Junior High School, and afterward Luna called the president's speech "appropriate and timely." He said, "I thought the message was very similar to messages that we hear public officials give to students often - it's definitely something that I say every chance I get in front of students, that students need to be responsible for their education, they need to come to school every day ready to learn."

Luna said the kids he watched with paid attention and took notes, then answered questions from both their teacher and him afterward. "I had a number of kids tell me that they were going to try a little bit harder this year ... that even if they encounter obstacles or challenges, they were going to keep trying and do a little bit better every day." Luna, a Republican, said he was puzzled by the outcry from some quarters over the president addressing school kids, "because I remember when I worked for the Bush Administration ... the president was always at a school the first day talking to students. That's why he was at a school Sept. 11 reading to students, because it was the first day of school in Florida."



Betsy Z. Russell
Betsy Z. Russell joined The Spokesman-Review in 1991. She currently is a reporter in the Boise Bureau covering Idaho state government and politics, and other news from Idaho's state capital.

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