State Board extends K-12 funding switch

The Idaho State Board of Education approved a temporary rule Thursday allowing public K-12 schools to use student enrollment rather than daily attendance to calculate funding for the next academic year.

The enrollment-based funding rule will expire at the end of the 2023 legislative session.

“What we are doing is providing budget certainty to our districts and charters at a time when they need that in order to educate our students coming out of the pandemic,” State Board President Kurt Liebich said.

The move provides funding consistency to public schools across the state which have experienced fluctuations in attendance rates over the last few years.

The State Board made the same decision the past two school years as COVID-19 disrupted in-person learning. While the action is temporary, board members are planning to work with legislators to find a permanent solution at the start of the next legislative session in January.

Last month, Idaho Gov. Brad Little vetoed a measure passed by lawmakers this session to make enrollment-based funding permanent.

Idaho is one of seven states in the country that uses an average daily attendance model to allocate funding.

“We have to solve the long-term problem,” Liebich said Thursday at the State Board’s last day of meetings on the University of Idaho’s campus.

In other business, the State Board reelected Kurt Liebich as president, Linda Clark as vice president and David Hill as secretary. The members will serve in those positions until April 2023.

Palermo can be reached at apalermo@dnews.com or on Twitter @apalermotweets.