Amended ‘8 in 6’ program bill passes Senate

The amended version of the “8 in 6” program, a plan to allow some Idaho students to take additional summer or online courses at state expense so they can complete both the first two years of college, two years of junior high and four years of high school all in six years rather than eight, has passed the Senate on a 28-7 vote. Senate Education Chairman John Goedde, R-Coeur d’Alene, said, “They sent us over a framework of an idea, and we had to fill in the missing blanks.”

Goedde said under HB 426a, the first year of the program, next year, wouldn’t cost the state additional money because money already budgeted for the Idaho Digital Learning Academy, a state-operated service that provides online classes to Idaho high school students, would go to cover the program’s costs. The IDLA is funded for next year, under the budget approved by JFAC, at $1 million less than its level this year. In  subsequent years, Goedde said, the “8 in 6” program would cost the state “around $2.3 million dollars that would have to be appropriated … to move this forward.”

The bill now moves back to the House for concurrence in the Senate amendments. The amended bill says the state would pay for additional regular high school courses for high-achieving students, up to two a year for a total of eight per student, so that those students would be eligible to take dual-enrollment courses that carry college credit in their final two years of high school; the state wouldn’t pay for the dual-enrollment courses. Only 10 percent of Idaho students could participate in the program.