In Lewiston visit, Little pushes education

LEWISTON — Idaho Gov. Brad Little used Lewiston School District’s new high school campus as a backdrop to highlight his success in getting the state Legislature to fund some of his top education priorities.

Little held a news conference Wednesday at the A. Neil DeAtley Career Technical Education Center at the high school, where he fielded questions from student journalists and other members of the media.

Lewiston School District Superintendent Lance Hansen introduced Little as a “friend of education.”

“He’s invested millions of dollars in early childhood literacy, and that I can tell you, has paid dividends in the Lewiston School District and around the state,” Hansen said. “And he also sees the other end where he developed opportunities for (Idaho Launch) to get our students into high-demand jobs.”

Funding for the Launch program, a Little priority, was approved by lawmakers in the recent legislative session. It makes up to $8,000 available to Idaho kids looking to pursue training in high-demand fields at Idaho colleges, universities and career technical training schools.

Little said he’d been “laser-focused” on getting the legislation approved. Combined with other programs that help high school students start advanced training before graduation, he said it will make Idaho more attractive to young people.

“It’s going to make it to where I know kids are going to have the best opportunity to stay here in Idaho and to have a successful career here in Idaho,” he said.

Legislators also passed a bill that will help the state’s school districts upgrade or replace dilapidated school buildings. He said the Lewiston School District will have access to as much as $19 million over the next decade.

“I put, this year, ($1.5 billion) into a fund that’s going to be available for either modernization or new buildings,” he said.

“Whether it’s maintenance, whether it’s a new school, whether it’s writing down bonds — fill in the blanks — the state never put money into facilities before and now we are.”

The governor said some people have already begun to challenge books on the shelves of the state’s public libraries. Little signed the so-called library bill that lets people challenge books they deem to be harmful to children and make the libraries liable for fines up to $250 if they don’t move the books to an adults-only section.

He said the legislation that he once called “the stinking library bill” is better than the one he vetoed last year. He objected to that one because it carried potential fines of $2,500, didn’t give librarians adequate time to move challenged books and didn’t adequately define harmful material.

He noted legislators came within one vote of overriding his veto in 2023.

“It’s still going to be a pain for the libraries,” he said. “There’s no question about it and I’m not very excited about that. But I think it’s going to give the public comfort.”

Efforts to provide tuition vouchers to Idaho families that send their kids to private schools stalled in the Legislature. Little said he continues to oppose vouchers because they would take funding out of public schools and give it to schools with no oversight from the state.

“The issue is really, do we take precious general fund money and make it available for others? — for schools that don’t have to comply with the same criteria that Mr. Hanson is tasked to do here with the Lewiston School District,” Little said. “That there is accountability, that there is transparency.”

The Legislature also failed to pass a health exception to Idaho’s abortion ban. According to state law, abortions can be performed to save the life of the mother but not to protect her from non-life-threatening but nonetheless bad health outcomes stemming from a problem pregnancy.

The U.S. Supreme Court will soon decide if a federal law that requires hospital emergency departments to provide stabilizing care overrides Idaho’s abortion ban. Little said lawmakers are waiting for the outcome of that case and others before working on a health exception.

“They committed to, after they saw the results of the litigation and the judicial reviews, that then they’d look at it,” he said.

Barker may be contacted at ebarker@lmtribune.com or at (208) 848-2273. Follow him on Twitter @ezebarker.