Goedde: Senate Ed likely to start discussing changes to SB 1113 Monday or Tuesday

Senate Education Chairman John Goedde, R-Coeur d’Alene, asked what’s next on the third, and biggest, piece of the school reform plan, said, “We’ve had individual committee members working on parts of it. We will schedule it for discussion Monday or Tuesday.” At that point, he said, the committee will “see … where there might be some opportunities to make changes.” Most likely, Goedde said, SB 1113 will be held in committee and a new, revised bill introduced.

SB 1113 is the centerpiece of state schools Supt. Tom Luna’s reform plan; it calls for increasing class sizes in grades 4-12 and cutting 770 teaching jobs in the next two years, to save millions that then would be funneled into technology upgrades, a laptop computer for every high school student, online courses, teacher performance pay, and more. That measure was pulled back to the Senate Education Committee yesterday, amid concerns in the Senate about raising school class sizes. The other two pieces of the plan, SB 1108, reducing Idaho teachers’ contract rights, and SB 1110, setting up the performance-pay plan, both passed the Senate today on identical 20-15 votes.