In tomorrow’s paper:

OLYMPIA _ Emotions ran high Wednesday, as state lawmakers discussed allowing illegal immigrant students – many of them brought to this country as young children – to qualify for millions of dollars in state college grants.

“As I look into their eyes and their hope for the future, I say let’s not draw a line around them,” said Rep. Dave Quall, D-Mount Vernon, who’s proposed House Bill 1706.

The proposal faces heated objections, however, from citizens unhappy about illegal immigration.
“Please turn off the bird feeder,” said Yakima valley resident Robert West. “The pie is only so big…I wonder what you’re going to tell those students who are U.S. students: `I’m sorry, but we gave your money to others who are here illegally.’”

One after another Wednesday, high school and college students, some without immigration papers, urged lawmakers to expand eligibility for state “need grants.” The grants are available to state residents whose families live on 70 percent or less of median income. Last year, some 72,000 students qualified for $182 million in help.

“We’re here and we’re ready to do something for this country. We love this country,” said Luis Ortega, a university student who said he’s maintaining a 3.5 grade point average.

“We are not asking for a free pass,” he said. “I believe in hard work. All I’m asking for is the opportunity to share the American dream.”

Over and over, the students described watching their parents toiling to make things better for their families. College is the ticket to a better future, they said.

“These are the doctors, the engineers, the teachers,” one woman told lawmakers, indicating rows

The state Senate is scheduled this morning to pass a bill, HB 1113, sponsored by local Rep. John Driscoll.

The bill is a $133 million sale of state bonds to pay for school construction projects that are already underway.

The work was already planned, but inflation and faster construction than the state expected means that the school construction fund was running out of money. The bond sale refills that pot of money.

“It would be foolish to stop projects that are halfway done,” said Driscoll.

The list, Driscoll said, include work at the Ferris, Shadle and Rogers high schools, as well as on school buildings in the Mead and Nine Mile Falls districts. All told, there are 167 projects in 67 districts.

“If school districts showed up for reimbursement and we said `Sorry,’ that would give another shock to the economy, a shock we don’t need,” said Hans Dunshee, chairman of the House construction-budget committee.

Sen. Jim Hammond, R-Post Falls, commended Luna for focusing on preserving the time that teachers spend with students. In nearly 20 years as an elementary school principal, Hammond said, he concluded, “The thing that I would need more than anything else is the people that are working for me. I could live without new textbooks for a year, I could live without the computer purchases.” He said it’d also be preferable for workers to take a pay cut than have layoffs. Luna said his proposal for cuts in state funding for pay for teachers and school administrators, implemented as school districts see fit, allows for that/Betsy Russell, Eye On Boise. More here.

• Luna: Students only get one chance
• About that federal stimulus money
• Other states are worse off
• The proposed cuts

Question: Would you willingly accept a pay cut if it meant preserving other jobs at your workplace?

Item: Teacher-student sex targeted: Lawmakers, others want tough law after state court ruling on 18-year-olds/Rich Roesler, SR Eye On Olympia

More Info:  It’s not illegal for a teacher to have consensual sex with an 18-year-old student, a state appeals court said two weeks ago. The response from state lawmakers: Well, it ought to be. House and Senate legislators want to ban any sexual contact between school employees and students when there’s more than five years’ difference in their ages. Violations would be a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

Question: This is simple common sense, right? Anyone want to argue that 18-year-olds are adults with the right to vote — so they should be able to date whom they want?

Sen. Jim Hammond, R-Post Falls, asked Idaho State University President Arthur Vailas if perhaps he should consider charging differential tuition - higher for high-cost programs, perhaps, that also set students up to earn big incomes once they’ve completed them. “Perhaps we should look at some kind of differential tuition?” he asked Vailas, at ISU’s budget hearing this morning in the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee/Betsy Russell, Eye On Boise. More here.

• Bayer: Maybe cut faculty salaries?
• Letting it pile up a bit more
• A good number even in bad times
• Otter’s missing words: Ready to back local option law

Question: Would you support Sen. Jim Hammond’s call for a sliding tuition scale, based on the type of degree an Idaho university student is pursuing?

Newly elected state superintendent of public instruction Randy Dorn threw down the gauntlet on school funding Monday in his inaugural appearance before the state Senate education committee.

Money for schools must come first, Dorn told them:

“We’ve really never matched up the standards and how you fund education…I will be reminding the legislators that the number one, primary, paramount duty you have is to fund education. That doesn’t mean kinda number one, close to the top, it means beyond the top and out in front of everything else that you look at. That has to be your number one priority.

“That is a hard shift because there’s many many things that come to view that just strike you that we’ve got to do something about that. And it’s hard to place education absolutely above everything else. But you don’t have that choice. Your constitution says — and you take an oath of office — that you will follow that. So that’s what has to create all the decision-making…that’s where the funding has to be.

The lawmakers showed little reaction. Some shuffled papers; others gazed, showing no emotion, straight at Dorn.

Committee chairwoman Rosemary McAuliffe said the budget remains a reality, and she wants input from Dorn to help lawmakers face the challenge.

“I’m asking you if you could help us, prior to seeing budgets released, could you give some input?” she said. “Because I think that’s critically important that you take this opportunity between now and a few weeks to kind of let us know, in this budget crisis, what would you do?

“I know you said it’s the number one priority,” she continued, “but we’ll take some share, you know that. While we will protect basic education, as we should. That is the paramount duty.”

Unlike last year, the district has decided to extend the school year. Be prepared for some cranky kids.

Surprised?

Shortly before Gov. Chris Gregoire’s inauguration day speech today, hundreds of teachers, parents and school officials held a rally just across the street.

Their message: despite the state’s budget shortfall — which Sen. Joe Zarelli on Wednesday suggested could rise to $7.5 billion over the next two years — education is not the place to cut.

“We’re not here for us,” one organizer said. “We’re here for the kids.”

The president of the state teachers’ union, Mary Lindquist, reminded the crowd of a similar rally held on the same ground, same day, 6 years ago. Some things, like who’s governor, have changed since then, she noted.

“The one thing that hasn’t changed is that our classrooms are still underfunded and our students are still not getting the resources they need for their future,” Lindquist said.

She blasted those who suggest that, given the state’s economic crisis, schools should be happy with the money they’re getting.

“Those people are wrong,” she said. “We must say to them that this is the best time to invest in education.”

She urged teachers and school advocates to make sure Olympia hears that message.

“You have staked a righteous place to plant your feet and stand firm,” she told the crowd.

Look for lots more demonstrations — state workers, teachers, advocates for the poor — in the coming weeks.

The parents of an 8-year-old girl with special needs say their daughter was handcuffed, arrested and charged with battery after a Friday incident at Kootenai Elementary School. The family is not being identified because of the girl’s age. The girl suffers from a neurobiological disorder called Asperger syndrome, which causes her to have “episodes” of disruptiveness, according to her parents. The girl’s father admits the episodes can be alarming, but said they are not violent. Without identifying the girl or her family, Lake Pend Oreille School District Superintendent Dick Cvitanich said law enforcement officers removed a student from school Friday for spitting on and inappropriately touching two staff members/Conor Christofferson, Bonner County Bee. More here.

Question: The parents of the girl is thinking about suing the district. Did the Pend Oreille School District act appropriately?

Sometimes, it is easier to measure how much a child has learned through scores, a grade or something equally tangible.

But as many of us have discovered, the numbers or grades don’t tell the whole story. They’re a snapshot of a moment, perhaps, but they’re certainly not a reflection of the whole child – his or her knowledge, talents and awareness of others and the world.

Since I’m relatively new to parenting, I sometimes worry that my 5-year-old isn’t ready for school, that he hasn’t learned how to read and write like other kids, that he might already be behind everyone else even before starting kindergarten.

I’m grateful for my son’s preschool teachers, who continue to teach me that there are other ways of knowing, other indicators that my son is on a healthy path to becoming a lifelong learner besides the traditional methods of paper and pencil exercises and keeping score.

One of the teachers recently loaned me this pamphlet, “A Parent’s Guide to Early Childhood Education,” by Diane Trister Dodge and Joanna Phinney. (It’s available through a website called www.TeachingStrategies.com.) “Our goal is to help children become independent, self-confident, inquisitive learners. We’re teaching them how to learn, not just in preschool and kindergarten, but all through their lives,” they wrote.

One section also addresses how and when a child should be learning reading, writing and mathematics:

“We could give your children workbooks. We could make them memorize the alphabet. We could drill them. We could test them. But if we do, your children may lose something very important. …

“Children who are rushed into reading and writing too soon miss important steps in learning and may suffer later on because they lack the foundation they need for using language. Children who are taught to read before they are ready may be able to sound out and recognize words, but they may also have little understanding of what they are reading. If they haven’t been given time to play, they won’t have explored objects enough to know what words mean. …

“Because math involves more than memorizing facts, because it involves logical thinking… children need many opportunities to count objects, sort them into piles and add some to a pile and take some away. It is by playing games like these that they will learn to truly understand addition, subtraction, division and multiplication. Without these concrete experiences, children may give correct answers but probably won’t understand what they are doing and why.”

What do you think? When and how did your child start learning how to read, write and do math? How do you teach your children to become lifelong learners?

Shortly before Gov. Chris Gregoire’s inauguration day speech today, hundreds of teachers, parents and school officials held a rally just across the street.

Their message: despite the state’s budget shortfall — which Sen. Joe Zarelli on Wednesday suggested could rise to $7.5 billion over the next two years — education is not the place to cut.

“We’re not here for us,” one organizer said. “We’re here for the kids.”

The president of the state teachers’ union, Mary Lindquist, reminded the crowd of a similar rally held on the same ground, same day, 6 years ago. Some things, like who’s governor, have changed since then, she noted.

“The one thing that hasn’t changed is that our classrooms are still underfunded and our students are still not getting the resources they need for their future,” Lindquist said.

She blasted those who suggest that, given the state’s economic crisis, schools should be happy with the money they’re getting.

“Those people are wrong,” she said. “We must say to them that this is the best time to invest in education.”

She urged teachers and school advocates to make sure Olympia hears that message.

“You have staked a righteous place to plant your feet and stand firm,” she told the crowd.

Look for lots more demonstrations — state workers, teachers, advocates for the poor — in the coming weeks.

Colleague Alison Boggs is working the phones after we received and confirmed tips (from ThomG & S&S Herb) that the schools in the Coeur d’Alene and Lakeland school districts will close again Wednesday. We’re checking out a rumor that there may be a problem with the Lake City High gym.

Item: Roof snow load levels close area schools: Snow-covered sidewalks, narrow streets cause concern for student safety/Brian Walker & Maureen Dolan, CDA Press

Officials in the Coeur d’Alene and Lakeland school districts decided late Monday afternoon that schools would be closed today so they could deal with heavy snow loads on school rooftops. In the Post Falls district, roofs were cleared during the winter break so no early decision to close was made. The snow load levels in the Lakeland district were approaching 30 pounds per square foot Monday afternoon. The district’s roofs have a 35-pound limit

Question: Are school officials being overly cautious or prudent in closing schools to check snow loads? Should this have been done at Coeur d’Alene and Lakeland schools during Christmas vacation?

Chatterbox: Can anyone out there confirm there is no school tomorrow in Coeur d’Alene? At least for Lake City High School? Sonny-boy texted us with that news as he’s on his way to Wallace for a basketball game. Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

DFO: An e-mail was circulated throughout the Coeur d’Alene School District this afternoon, informing staffers that schools will be closed Tuesday. This will allow school officials to assess the possible threat posed by snow load on school buildings. Shinie notes that Lakeland School District already has announced that schools will be closed tomorrow, too. Also closed will be North Idaho Christian.

Item: 6 religious students claims Boise State discriminates/Idaho Statesman

More Info: Six Boise State University students have filed suit in federal court complaining that Boise State Universities does not permit use of student activity fees for religious groups. Attorneys for Christian Legal Society’s Center for Law & Religious Freedom in Springfield, Va., filed the lawsuit Thursday. The complaint alleges the school’s policy violates the First Amendment and is viewpoint discrimination. The suit asks that BSU be prevented from requiring and allocating student activity fees until it stops its policy.

Question: Does Boise State’s policy discriminate against student religious groups?