Math Whiz Joins Fox Team Award-Winning Teacher Now State Math, Science Coordinator

An innovative and award-winning Twin Falls High School teacher will leave the classroom to become state math and science coordinator.

The decision to join the state Department of Education under state Superintendent Anne Fox was not easy for LaRon Smith. But he starts work Dec. 11.

“I’m happy here,” he said. “I agonized over this decision considerably.”

Yet it will allow him to communicate with teachers around Idaho and testify before the Legislature.

Smith served as president of the Idaho Council of Math Teachers. Winning the Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1991 and the Einstein Fellowship in 1994 did not hurt his chances either.

“All the parts just fit,” said Tom Farley, who left the post to become the new chief of the Bureau of Instruction.

“He is aligned with the philosophy, the direction the department is trying to go in education.”

Smith thinks math teachers in the middle schools should be certified to teach math to guarantee quality teachers. Right now they can teach up to pre-algebra with an elementary teaching certificate.

There also should be more communication along the chain: between colleges, high schools, middle schools, elementary schools and even preschools.

Preparation in one school leads to success or lack of it in the next, he said. Too often, educators sit around and “gripe” about the feeder schools, he said.

The Einstein Fellowship sent him to Washington, D.C., where he wrote legislation that would fund Head Start math and science programs. The bill, which he checks on regularly, is still in committee.

This being the year of the Republican revolution, he doubts that federal lawmakers will be willing to create a new program.