Enrollment drops as 42 students transfer

BONNERS FERRY — Enrollment is down 42 students within the last month in the Boundary County School District.

Naples Elementary School enrollment decreased by 18 students to 103 students. Valley View Elementary decreased by 19 students.

Mt. Hall Elementary gained 12 students and is at 134 students as of April 9 when the Boundary County School District Board of Trustees meeting was held.

Eleven migrant students moved into the district, five into Mt. Hall Elementary and six students into the Middle School.

“We are losing kids to charter schools,” said BFHS physical education teacher Ed DePriest, at the April board meeting. “The way they (charter schools) approach things is why they (the students) go there.”

The closest charter school is Forrest M. Bird Charter School in Sandpoint (previously named Sandpoint Charter School).

DePriest expounded on the fact that charter schools have an expectation of excellence with a very basic and simple criteria for behavior. He urged the board to look at a copy of a charter school’s handbook, particularly the discipline section.

“Discipline is our biggest issue,” DePriest said. “A small minority of kids have no respect for anything. At the high school, everyone knows right from wrong.”

Teachers are not baby sitters, but are there to teach subject material said DePriest. With the string of 10 bomb threats this year, high school students must sign out of class, sign into the bathrooms, stay on campus the entire school day and have permission to leave the school grounds.

“We have great kids in Boundary County. The overwhelming majority are great kids,” said DePriest. “They are not leaving because of the great education but because the children are being cheated of education time because of disruptive kids.”

At the high school, students have exceeded the maximum number of hours of missed education, said curriculum director Jan Bayer.

Administrators will be writing a letter to the Idaho Department of Education to ask for a waiver for instructional time missed because of the bomb threats.

Bayer said the Idaho Department of Education will either grant the waiver or require the students to make up the missed time.

Principal Gary Pflueger asked the board to continue changing the attendance policy so parents and students are held more accountable.

“The parents have to be accountable to get kids to schools,” said Pflueger. “If you involve the legal system, they will get kids to school.”

“We will get it set up,” said Supt. Richard Conley. “It does put teeth in it.”