School district annexation sought
If the election goes their way Tuesday, a group of parents near Spirit Lake will be able to put their kids on the school bus for a few minutes a day instead of two hours.
The families live in Bonner County, just north of the border with Kootenai County. As such, they are zoned to schools in the West Bonner County School District, which take about an hour to get to, while schools in the Lakeland School District are only minutes away.
Parent Tonya Reed has been leading the petition to annex 21 square miles into the Lakeland district, whose schools are in Spirit Lake, Rathdrum and Athol. Her nine-month quest has been opposed by various groups, including both school districts and other parents who live in the affected area.
Registered voters living within those 21 square miles will have the opportunity to decide whether they want to be included in the Lakeland district and whether they are willing to pay the taxes associated with that district. Fifty percent approval is needed for the first question and 66 percent for the second question, and both must pass for the measure to go forward.
West Bonner parent Walter Larsen said he opposes the measure for several reasons. One is that the 21 square miles does not include people in the lower eastern part of the district, who have just as long a commute. “The petition does not serve all the residents of lower Bonner County,” Larsen said.
And, Larsen said, for 10 years he and his wife have wanted the West Bonner district to build schools in nearby Blanchard. Only now does the area have enough children to justify that, Larsen said. By asking to be annexed into another district, he added, the petitioners aren’t giving the West Bonner district the opportunity to grow.
A donor has given the West Bonner district 10 acres for an elementary school in Blanchard, which could be ready for the 2007-2008 school year, Superintendent Tony Feldhausen said.
Feldhausen estimated the West Bonner district would lose more than 90 students if the annexation petition passes. That translates into a loss of $600,000, Feldhausen said, and a reduction of staff and programs.
Sonja Dove’s response to that: “They don’t need the money if the kids aren’t walking through the door.”
Dove lives half a mile from Spirit Lake schools, yet she has to rouse her children at 5:30 a.m. to be ready for the 75-minute bus ride to Priest River. Dove said the sleep deprivation has caused arguments in the family, and one of her daughters “had an accident” during the long separation from restrooms.
“This is an issue my kids deal with every day,” said Dove, who has 9- and 10-year-old daughters and a son who will start kindergarten next year. “It’s something that needs to be fought for.”
The distance from school has limited the extracurricular activities she can let her daughters participate in, Dove said. Her children should not be penalized because they live at the end of the county, she added.
And an elementary school in Blanchard wouldn’t help middle and high school students in the area, Dove said.
Reed, who’s leading the petition, answered criticisms about the boundaries she drew by saying, “I’m a mom. I’m not a politician.” Reed said she didn’t get the help she wanted from the West Bonner district.
The 21 square miles were drawn based on residents’ interest in annexation. “Whoever was willing to help was included,” Reed said.
Reed has also faced critics who say the effect on residents’ taxes has not been clearly publicized. Reed denies this and shows an election flier she made, which states that if the annexation passes, residents will pay an additional $1.59 per $1,000 of assessed value – $159 on a $100,000 home.
The Lakeland school board opposed the annexation because the additional students would overcrowd Spirit Lake Elementary and possibly Timberlake Junior High, Superintendent Chuck Kinsey said.
Both school boards said annexation wouldn’t be in all students’ best interest, but they acknowledged the challenge for border students. They directed their administrative staffs to explore what steps can be taken, Kinsey said.
Idaho law was changed in 1998 to allow for annexation requests in border situations, said Allison Westfall, spokeswoman for the State Department of Education.
Since then, the state has received 14 requests to change boundaries, eight of which went to elections. All but one passed. The exception involved three-quarters of a square mile in the West Bonner district, where residents had petitioned in 2001 to be included in Lakeland. While the inclusion question passed, the willingness-to-pay-taxes question failed. That area is included in the new petition.
“It’s easy to talk about adjusting boundaries. It’s hard to do it,” said Lakeland’s Kinsey. “Keeping in mind there are always going to be people on the other side of the line.”