Fox Offers No Quick Fix For Schools State Schools Chief Tells Post Falls Audience Things Are Bad All Over

It probably was small solace to her audience of Post Falls parents with kids in crowded, outdated schools.

But the head of Idaho’s public school system told them Wednesday that conditions are even worse elsewhere in the state.

“You ought to go with me to Pocatello. Pokey High is 100 years old,” Anne Fox said. “In Payette, the termites are marching through the junior high.”

Fox couldn’t offer a lot of hope for change in a school district that has failed twice to get voter approval for a new high school.

The need for classrooms was high on the minds of 10 parents and Chamber of Commerce officials who met with Fox in the Post Falls school district office. She also met with school staff members and the Kiwanis club, and toured some schools.

The visit was a homecoming for Fox. She was superintendent of Post Falls schools from 1984 to 1986, and still owns a riverside condominium here.

She visits as many school districts as she can each summer, making it to 26 of them last year. Harrison and St. Maries are on her schedule for today.

In an informal session, Fox described the Department of Education’s accomplishments in her two years as state superintendent of public instruction.

One big project has been revising the curriculum for kindergarten through 12th grade, reducing from 1,500 to 378 the number of rules that the state imposes on schools, she said. There will be public hearings on the draft proposal this fall.

But better buildings were foremost on parents’ minds.

“Most people wouldn’t want to work in the buildings these children go to school in,” said school activist Joni Hirst.

Heads nodded in agreement when Hirst complained about the two-thirds “super-majority” required to pass a school bond. Fox responded by saying that, every year since 1978, a law has been proposed to change that to a simple majority.

It’s failed every year, she said.

“I don’t see that changing with this Legislature, I really don’t.” Fox said.

She called the super-majority rule a tool for property-tax payers to say ‘I can’t handle any more taxes.”’ Last year, Fox unsuccessfully proposed a half-cent sales tax increase that would have raised $53 million a year for school construction and repair. That would have made a dent in the $700 million or more that’s needed.

What happens in the Legislature next year depends on whether voters pass the One Percent property tax limitation initiative in November, Fox said.

Many observers, Gov. Phil Batt among them, oppose the initiative because of its potentially devastating effect on schools. Initiative supporters say there’s enough money in the state general fund to make up for the lost property taxes.

Fox said she sympathizes with property-tax payers, but remains neutral on the initiative.

But if it fails, she said, “I will take the half-cent bill back to the Legislature. The governor has said he would not veto it.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo