2025 Legislative Session Preview

In this episode, we discuss what IEA members can expect from the 2025 session of the Idaho Legislature. Joining us are Lisa Callaway, and IEA member from Boise who serves on the union's government relations and political action committees, IEA President Layne McInelly and Chris Parri, IEA's political director. 

HOST: Mike Journee

Transcript

Mike Journee Welcome to the IEA Reporter Podcast, a regular discussion about the news and events important to Idaho Education Association members and those who value public education. IEA members are public school educators from all over the state and members of the largest union in Idaho. They're Idaho's most important education experts and the user influence to fight for a free, quality and equitable public education for every student in the state. I'm Mike Journey, communications director, D.A. and I'll be your host for this episode. Today, we'll be discussing what IEA members can expect from the 2025 session of the Idaho legislature. Joining us will be Lisa Callaway, an IEA member from Boise who serves on the Union's Government Relations and Political Action Committees. IEA President Layne McInelly. And Chris Perry is political director. Everyone, thank you so much for joining us today. And Lisa, welcome. I believe this is your first appearance on a podcast. Chris and later veterans. So thank you for bringing your fresh member perspective. So as we move into the holidays, Governor Little's annual State of the State address, which kicks off the legislative session, is scheduled for January six. And Chris, I know you've been playing the closest attention to the scuttlebutt. Do you have any perspective just now on what we'll hear from the governor during a speech?

Chris Parri It's to be honest, it's a bit of a black box right now. So we obviously know that the governor cares you know, he cares a lot about education is kind of his of primary legacy that he's trying to leave But we haven't heard the specifics of what might be included in his speech or necessarily what will be the big focus this year in education. We obviously know what the attacks on education are going to look like and as the governor's office does, too, but a little less on the proactive stuff that that we can we can join with the governor's office and work on together.

Mike Journee So Lisa, as an educator and a member active in your unions, government relations and electoral work, what are some of the things that you'd like to hear from Governor Little in his speech?

Lisa Really the main thing that comes to mind for me is I think I would love to hear him say something that inspires hope for educators because especially since COVID, it's been kind of a rough go and we've had a lot of ups and downs after schools closed, it was kind of like this pendulum was swinging. So I'd love to hear a message that just shows faith in our teachers to show that we can restore that hope and move back in the right direction. That shows that teachers are professionals.

Mike Journee Well said. and you know, government little has proven to be a pretty strong ally for educators at the policy level and for public education generally. And, you know, especially given some of the politics that we see at the state House. And, Chris, I wanted to kind of circle back on that. You know, I think overall, the consensus is that the elections this year pushed the Idaho legislature further to the right. You know, and while we do talk about the politics of education not being partizan, it shouldn't be partizan. We all know that can be a challenging thing for public education when extreme right folks are making policy. And one of the one of the examples, though, that that the election wasn't all bad, though, you know, we did lose some key allies during election, like Julie Yamamoto, who was the chairperson of the House Education Committee. But at the same time, the election brought us folks like Senator Kevin Cook from east Idaho And, you know, so while elections weren't great for us, do you think you still have room to maneuver as the I as the principal lobbyist at the statehouse?

Chris Parri I think so. Yeah. So you're right. I think that the the primary elections this year saw a ton of spending by dark money groups that are pro voucher. They kind of identified Idaho as kind of the next domino that they want to kick over on this national kind of campaign that they're doing. So they spent several million dollars in Idaho to kick out a couple of our allies that were anti voucher. And I think, you know, they all of their spending didn't exactly go, I think, where they wanted to. There's quite a few these new legislators who are pretty skeptical of about vouchers, too. And what the advantage we have over those like, you know, huge well moneyed groups from out of state is that we're able to go in there and talk to people their priorities and put a human face onto these policies where the, you know, outside groups see a bunch of just dollar signs. Right. And I think that's crucial. And yeah, so Senator Cook out in Idaho Falls, David Lent out of Idaho Falls, you know, we added a really key ally, I think in north Idaho with incoming Senator Jim Woodward and essentially what those elections proved. Also, another dynamic at play is that where when people vote in a primary election or a general election, Idahoans typically elect people that are aligned with Idaho values. So up in District one where Jim Woodward was elected, he won because 50% of that district voted in a primary election, which is just about unheard of. Meanwhile, in, you know, our good friend, former Representative Julie Yamamoto’s District and Caldwell, only 19% of folks turned out in that primary election. So I think it's really crucial to to kind of look at those dynamics at play, too. And, yeah, like you said, I think there's plenty of room to maneuver. There's people to get to know. And a lot of these folks are, you know, your regular Idaho and who is now finding themselves in the state house. And I think that there's some opportunities there for sure.

Mike Journee That's fantastic to hear. And I you know, it's interesting. Almost as soon as we start talking about the the politics of the state house around education, immediately vouchers comes out. And and you know, it seems to me that among all the education issues, that's already the one that's taking up the most oxygen. Layne Can you give us a little bit of background about why members oppose vouchers?

Layne Absolutely. Thank you, Mike. So our members across the state oppose vouchers because it's siphoning public funds away from our public schools to go to private or parochial schools. We know that those private parochial schools aren't held to the same standards as our public schools. And so our educators are really concerned about that. We know that these vouchers have ballooned in other states and just siphoned millions upon millions of dollars away from the students that really need and deserve those funds. Public schools in Idaho, they serve every single student that walks through the doors of their school, whereas private, parochial schools, they can pick and choose students that they do or don't want. And so we need to make sure that we have a thorough, fully funded public education in the state of Idaho.

Chris Parri Can

Mike Journee Thanks.

Chris Parri I add on to that really quick?

Mike Journee Oh, please do.

Chris Parri So I think that I think it is absolutely true that vouchers siphon money from from public schools. There's kind of no way around it. I think it's also pretty crucial to looking at just how passionate members are about this issue. There's a there's a real like ethical and moral case underneath this that teachers care about. And it goes across party, you know, across like how long you've been in the profession, across geographies and all that. And it is about protecting kids and knowing that in an unregulated environment, like so many of these pro voucher groups want, those kids can be taken advantage of, particularly the most vulnerable kids in the state. So when we look at, you know, the moral and ethical case against vouchers, it truly is about protecting kids, protecting students and making sure that the taxpayer money goes transparently and accountable in accountably to where taxpayers want it to go, which is always to public schools. It has not changed. People love their public schools despite all the propaganda that gets out there on the on the heels of millions of dollars spent by these groups. So just want to emphasize to that that there's the fiscal side of it, which is totally true. We are already underfunded, but there's a moral and ethical side that I think is also really important that that that our members really, really care about.

Lisa just to add on to what Layne and Chris were mentioning. I'm just thinking about my students that I have now. And I didn't have a choice of which students ended up in my classroom. It's the first day of school and they come in and they're my students. And my job is to make sure they have the best education possible. I can't imagine denying any of my students and turning them away and telling them, Oh, no, you can't come in to my classroom for whatever reason. And so in my mind, it's kind of like that same type of situation. If we're not allowing that equity in opportunity for all students, then we're not doing our job.

Mike Journee Well said, all of you. I really appreciate that. And and, you know, it's even if you talk about the rural urban divide or any of those things, you know, most private schools, frankly, are here in Ada County, right here where the where we are having this conversation right now at the moment. And they they're they're not very the there are very few rural communities that have private schools that would benefit from a voucher program. So

Layne The.

Mike Journee basically, you're taking money away from those programs and putting it in into private programs in the urban areas. And so there's there's lots of reasons to to oppose vouchers. And and, you know, Layne brought up a point about how what we're seeing in other states. And Chris, learned just the other day that pro voucher advocates here in Idaho are going to be hosting the former Arizona governor, Doug Ducey, here in the very same day as the governor speech on January 6th. And he's presumably going to be here to praise his state's universal voucher law, which is often upheld by voucher proponents as a model. But, Chris, we know better about the real impacts of that. Well, talk a little bit about what we know about the voucher the Arizona voucher program.

Chris Parri So, you know, it's it's a pretty easy one to criticize, to be honest. There's zero accountability in this program. And you're seeing currently Arizona grappling with a ton of fraud that is taking advantage of taxpayer money. And like, I can't like, I don't want to fault folks, like, completely like, I think that there are true believers in you know, the voucher school choice, kind of, in my mind, fraud. But it's been sold to them as kind of a way to improve their their education system. Right. Unfortunately, in Arizona, the costs ballooned. So this year it's estimated to cost around $825 million. It has, like I said, zero accountability tied to that. So the one the only requirement is that it ostensibly needs to be spent. Your voucher needs to ostensibly be spent on an educational expense. Now, how the taxpayer and states regulate that is currently

Layne How?

Chris Parri creating a massive backlog

Layne And.

Chris Parri in Arizona state government to the point where they're just going to give out the money without checking basically that it's going to an educational expense. And then they promise that they'll look at it later on when they have more time. Right. This is not how government is supposed to run in general. Right. So pretty shocking, just like on a functional level. And then, you know, just looking at the actual program itself. So it they are also giving over. So they the the voucher itself is $500 higher than what the state spends on per pupil funding for schools. 75% of those vouchers are going to students who are already enrolled in private school. So are there. Arizona taxpayers are funding a choice that has already been made. This is not like creating a huge exodus, right. From from public schools. And actually, 75% is is kind of the optimistic side of the amount of four for this type of program. So in Arkansas, 95% of their vouchers are going to students who are already enrolled in private school. Right. Like this is going to the wealthiest people in Arizona, in Arkansas, in Wisconsin, in Ohio, all of these places where they've implemented vouchers. It is a massive transfer of wealth from regular working people to the rich. The people who have already paid for private school tuition are just getting handouts from taxpayers now.

Layne Mike, I want to jump in and just put one more fact in the really quickly. The the Iowa Department of Education has said that they have two thirds of the students enrolled in private schools have never actually even considered going to a public school. And only 13% of those attending private school have ever been in a public school before. And so these these voucher schemes are taking away from our public school students who we need to be supporting and educating.

Mike Journee Lisa, would you have anything further than.

Lisa One other concern I have with that is the academic accountability. So in my school, we take diagnostics we have to take. I sat at the end of the year and granted one test isn't everything, but at the same time it does give us data to show how our students are doing and whether or not they're learning at the pace they should. It gives us really good feedback to inform our instruction. And so one thing I wonder about as far as the academic accountability is, are all these private schools held to the same standard that public schools are?

Mike Journee That's a fair question. And I think Chris Perry is going to be asking a lot of lawmakers that same question this winter at the state House. Hey, Chris. I was wondering, do you feel like the appearance of the former governor from Arizona means that we're going to be getting a universal voucher bill proposed this session?

Chris Parri I can't think of another reason why they would bring him here, he calls it his pinnacle accomplishment, even though it probably cost him the election. So the yeah, I anticipate that there's going to be a pretty expansive proposal on the heels of his visit. You know, there's going to be I think there's going to be quite a few actual voucher proposals this year from universal yeses to voucher bills that, you know, have some sort of like means test income limit or something like that. The problem with these bills in general is that they've always started small. So, it's harder to get the voucher across the line than it is to amend the bill later on. So there might be an income limit this year, but that doesn't mean that that will stay there next year or the year after and so on.

Mike Journee Once the camel gets its nose into the tent. Yeah.

Chris Parri Exactly. Yes.

Mike Journee So vouchers are going to be a huge, huge issue this year, obviously. But there's going to be plenty of other things. And one of the things that I, I, I really wanted to talk about is something that our members talk about a lot and that is student well-being and and violence against educators. It's it's no secret that this is a growing issue. We hear it all the time. Policymakers know it's an issue. And, we've just recently finished some prep work for the session. And we did a survey of our members and 1300 of the members who responded Out of those, 1300 29% of them, one third said that they have experienced classroom violence, which is astonishing to me, Lisa, with a number that large, I'm assuming this kind of thing has impacted you or colleagues of yours Yes.

Lisa It has. And luckily I have never had a really intense incident where I was injured. But there have definitely been several instances where if I had not been paying attention or moved as fast as I did, I could have been injured by a student. I have had several colleagues who have been hit, punched, bitten, kicked. And it is awful because in that moment, of course, you want to defend yourself. But at the same time, you have a student who's probably in crisis. And it's really a vicious cycle because we have all these things that feed into that situation, not having enough mental health support for students, not having enough support for student behavior and having enough education support professionals. So a lot of things go into that situation and it is very unfortunate that so many educators have experienced that.

Mike Journee Absolutely. And I you know, it's it's just astonishing to me and you make a really important point about this is a moment in this kid's life where they're in crisis and and our know our members, they they're desperate to help students as much as they possibly can. But but sometimes things just get completely out of hand. And it's and it's it's a real challenge. And not only for the for the teacher and for the student involved, but for all the other students in the class who are missing out on learning in that moment or or who might be being triggered by by some of the challenges that are that are taking place in the classroom. this is something we've been hearing about for a few years now, especially since the pandemic. Chris, do we expect any focus from policymakers on this this year?

Chris Parri We do know that the governor's office has taken a real interest in trying to to help out in with student mental health. Student behavioral health. The exact form of that, I'm not exactly sure quite yet. The State Department of Ed also is looking into ways to do this. I know cell phone usage and social media usage and stuff while well, not kind of tackling the issue directly is I think a contributor and in many cases to to what we're seeing with the mental health crisis in schools and then in the legislature. I believe that there are some bipartisan group of legislators working on several bills to help tackle the harassment of educators and to protect them more in the classroom as well.

Mike Journee Layne. Anything to add?

Layne I want to make sure that everyone that's listening to this understands that we're going to be advocating on behalf of not only teachers, but anybody that works in the school systems. A lot of times it's our paraprofessionals who are the ones that are taking these attacks from these students. And so we want to make sure that any adult in the school system or any child is looked after. And we are going to be protecting them and helping the legislature understand the importance of a safe working environment for our educators and a safe learning environment for our students.

Mike Journee That's fantastic. And and both you and Lisa brought up education support professionals as part of this. And so one of the things that I was hoping we could talk about was was pay and retention for those folks in our classrooms. These are the folks that that aren't necessarily certified educators that are that work in schools alongside of our certified educators and support that work. It could be front office staff. They could be they even in some cases are our our counselors and others, the bus drivers, the folks that work in a cafeteria, all the folks who make the school run outside of the classroom. And one of the biggest challenges that that we know exists is the pay that these folks make or that they should be getting paid more. We have we have data that shows that that the average pay in Idaho for education support professionals all across the board is about $29,000, which puts us near the bottom of the list nationwide. But nationwide, this is an issue as well, because the the nationwide average is only about $34,000. Lisa, what can you tell us about that dynamic around education, support professionals and the retention that they're seeing? What do you see in your school and what are you you're hearing from from your colleagues about that?

Lisa That's a great question. I think having been in several different schools over the last ten years of teaching, I've seen different things. And luckily at my school we have retained our education support professionals for the most part, and we are very, very fortunate because not everybody gets to experience that and they impact our day so much because even just having an education support professional with that one student can change the entire dynamic of your classroom of 35 kids. And so it impacts the learning not only of just that student, but the learning of every student in the classroom.

Mike Journee So, Chris, one thing I was going to ask also, you know, we given kind of the the the right word trend of the legislature. And we saw this we saw bills last year around this. Do you think guns in schools are going to be something that we're going to see this session?

Chris Parri Yes. Well, definitely. See, I think another guns in schools, Bill, similar to the one we saw last year, which was a universal concealed carry for essentially every adult on school property to be able to carry a gun. I think crucially, that Bill just did not have any input from parents, from law enforcement, from school boards, from teachers, from, you know, education, support for professionals, from administrators, from anyone who would be impacted by this legislation. It was put in front of the legislature by essentially a lobby group out of Virginia. So last year the approach was, you know, last year the Guns in Schools Bill made it through the House of Representatives pretty handily and ended up in the Senate. The Senate took a much more thoughtful approach to this and brought in law enforcement, brought in the State Department of Education, the school boards, the administrators, the IEA, to come in here and try and come to a consensus on what a smart bill might look like. That takes into those in those perspectives and protects local control. Obviously, the school safety needs, I think of Boise, where police response time can be less than a minute, are going to be different than the needs in Garden Valley or Kendrick or a more rural area where law enforcement response times can be longer so that legislation end up dying in the committee on the Senate side. So we didn't end up with a with a guns in schools bill last year. But yeah, I anticipate another one coming this year. I just really hope that there is room for thoughtful conversation around it and not just, you know, passage of a of a out of state lobbyist written bill.

Mike Journee So, Chris, what are you hearing about funding this year? Funding is always a challenge. And sometimes the the education funding bills are the go home bills for the legislature. What do you think we're going to be seeing around funding this year?

Chris Parri All indications are that the budget to the state budget is going to be quite a bit tighter than it's been in the previous couple of years. So I don't anticipate like a massive increase in education funding nor a massive decrease necessarily. I think what is really key this year is that it will be a test of what the legislature really wants to prioritize, which I think will be really revealing as well. So, you know, you when your budget is tight, every dollar matters more. Every new dollar in spending matters more. Right. So if you have a, you know, $70 million voucher bill you want to pass, then you are actually trading off good things like spending more on special education, you know, getting public schools, the resources they need to dig themselves out of the hole. That's that they've been put in for for 20 plus years. Right. And, yeah, we just we we just won't have enough money to satisfy all the needs. And so those tradeoffs are going to be front and center, I think. And, you know, if you ask the normal Idahoans, should we, you know, make sure special education kids are taken care of in public schools, or should we, you know, pass a massive, you know, unaccountable voucher bill? I think the answer is going to be pretty clear.

Mike Journee So, Layne, lawmakers just recently completed their organizational session. And and I think given the results of the election, we were kind of preparing for the worst when it came to the germane committees for education issues, which typically the House and Senate education committees. But what came out of the organizational session were they these committees and like leadership turned out to be? We turned out to be somewhat pleasantly surprised by that. Can you talk a little bit about why?

Layne So last year in House Education Committee, we had a pretty friendly group in there and we had Chairperson Julie Yamamoto that really worked with us to help her help us have a more successful legislative session last year. Unfortunately, when she lost her primary this year, that committee got switched up quite a bit, and now it's not looking nearly as friendly as it was last year. On the opposite side, though, the Senate, we really had a hard time last year with them. And this year it's the opposite. We actually have a really beneficial group of people that understand and value public education that will be hearing the legislation that's coming through like we have Senator Woodward back on the committee, Senator Lynch. So we've got some good people there that we can have conversations with and share our stories and share our why. And they're going to listen to us and they're going to actually be thoughtful and considerate when these bills come before them. And so we're excited to see the Senate Education Committee group, and we're willing to work and have conversations with the House Education Committee group as well.

Mike Journee In addition to the governor speech is lobby day is another important day. Early in the session for IEEE members, it's always on Martin Luther King Jr day, which is January 20 this year. Would you mind talking a little bit about the importance of our lobby day, what we do at lobby day, and the importance of it for our listeners?

Layne Absolutely. Thanks, Mike. So we have the opportunity to bring an educators from around the state to have conversations, these critical conversations with our legislators to help them understand what a day to day life looks like in our classroom, for our students, for our teachers, for our paraprofessionals, for anybody that's working in the school system. So we have the opportunity to have a lobby day dinner on the Sunday night before MLK Junior Day, and we give them resources and help them to prepare their stories and have those conversations with the legislator. Then the next day we all go over to the Capitol and we have about 200 people with us that walk over. We have meetings set up to visit with those legislators and like I said, share our our highs and lows of what we do every single day to make sure that the students in Idaho are receiving the best public education they can possibly receive. Helping those legislators understand the importance of what we do is critical to them understanding why they should or shouldn't vote a certain way on bills. So it's a great opportunity for members from around the state to share their voices and uplift public education

Mike Journee And and Lisa, you've been part of a couple of lobby days and you've gotten really engaged with this one. Can you talk a little bit about what what's important from your perspective as a member and why it's important?

Lisa I love this question. And really, I think you already said a key word, which is perspective. And I think lobby day is so important because it offers a perspective that you don't think about in your day to day life as an educator in the classroom. I spent so long being so focused on what was happening in my own building and in my own classroom. And when I finally attended Lobby Day a few years ago, I just had a huge aha moment and I realized that wow, I could actually have an impact by advocating for myself, for my students, other educators. And I also realized that legislators are just regular people and I shouldn't feel intimidated to reach out and make connections. So that's really the main thing for me, is it just kind of shifts your focus and I think it broadens your lens a little bit from the day to day things that you're used to in the classroom

Mike Journee And Chris, I understand that there's still an opportunity for at least a few more people to register and join us at the state House on January 20th.

Chris Parri Yeah. Depending on when you're listening to this. The deadline is December 23rd to sign up for lobby day. All members should have an invite in their email from the IEA. And but if that deadline passes, do reach out to us and we can hopefully get you there. It's it's an incredible event. It's it's definitely the most powerful day for education policy. Bar none like this is the one that legislators always come back to me saying. That was the day that I finally understood what you were talking about. Right. It's hugely beneficial. So please, please do join us.

Mike Journee And The big lobby day is not the only opportunity. We also have local lobby days too. Chris, can you tell us a little bit about those and if if a local is interested in sending some folks over how that how do they do that?

Chris Parri Sure. So if you're local, if you have a couple folks in your in your local that are willing to come down and visit with the legislature this this winter and into spring. Get in touch with your loop and we can work to find a good day for you guys to come down here and stay in a hotel if you have to or. Yeah. And they can meet with you and do a training and we can go and talk to your lawmakers and kind of hold them accountable to what they said during the big lobby day and hopefully address a few other issues, too.

Mike Journee And for most listeners, loop means your local president, the president of your local chapter. So you reach out to those folks and ask them how you can get involved with local lobby day and and we can we can we can bring a group from your local here and set you up with meetings so.

Chris Parri That's Mike the jargon giraffe. Very helpful.

Mike Journee Oh, well, folks, thank you so much for joining. I think it's all my questions for right now. I really appreciate the three of you joining us, Lisa. Chris Layne, thank you for our conversation and looking forward to a new one sometime in the future.

Chris Parri Thanks a ton, Mike.

Layne Thanks, Mike.

Lisa Thank you.

Mike Journee Thank you for listening to this episode of the IEA Reporter podcast and thanks to IEA member Lisa Callaway, IEA Political Director Chris Perry and IEA President Lee McInelly. Please watch for updates about new episodes on our social media channels or sign up to receive IEA. Reporter Email updates on our website at IdahoEA dot org. I am Mike Journey and as always, I hope you join me and thanking Idaho's public school educators for everything they do for our state students, families and public schools.