There are 200 school board members from all over the state in town today for an Idaho School Boards Association meeting, and that's why the Legislature's largest hearing room, the west wing auditorium, is full for the Senate Education Committee meeting this afternoon, where ISBA President Wayne Freedman gave a presentation. As budget cuts come, Freedman told the lawmakers, "We ask that they have as little impact on the students in the classroom as possible."

This morning, the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee unveiled its plan to protect public schools from any further budget cuts this year, pushing off the big cuts to fiscal year 2011. The joint committee will vote on that plan tomorrow morning; it forces cuts of about 7.1 percent on nearly everything else in state government this year, with only some small exceptions. Freedman told the Education Committee that cuts next year are more manageable than cuts in the current year, even if they're bigger. "Any holdbacks are going to ... affect school districts more this year  than they would be if we rolled them into next year." He said school districts need maximum flexibility to plan for the cuts, and noted, "It's going to affect every district differently."