Bill on new-teacher mentoring is killed

BOISE – A Senate committee killed a bill Tuesday that would have trimmed back required mentoring programs for new Idaho teachers.

Several Treasure Valley teachers and administrators voiced strong opposition to HB 315, contending it would hurt newly hired educators and students.

“If you have a good mentoring program, you’re going to develop good teachers,” said Brenda Mahler, a teacher adviser in the Meridian School District.

Because state budget writers haven’t funded the $2 million program for the past two years, proponents said the bill had become an unfunded mandate that many rural school districts were having a difficult time meeting.

The state teachers union has filed lawsuits against four school districts, arguing there’s been a breach of the employee contract regarding mentoring. The bill, which already had passed the House, would stop further suits from being filed, backers said.

“It’s not our intention to get rid of mentoring,” said Cliff Green, executive director of the Idaho School Boards Association, the bill’s sponsor. “It never has been. Our intention is to get rid of the liability.”

The bill would have required school districts to fund mentoring only for a new teacher’s first year rather than three years. But after concerns were raised in the Senate Education Committee, the sponsors of the measure offered an amendment that would have changed the requirement to two years of funding.

A move by several lawmakers, including Republican Sen. Mike Jorgenson of Hayden Lake, to open the bill to amendments died on a 4-4 vote, as did a move to kill the bill. But with the deadlock, the bill died anyway.

Sen. John Goedde, R-Coeur d’Alene, the committee chairman, voted to change the bill while Republican Sen. Gary Schroeder of Moscow voted against the change.

The committee approved a resolution directing the state Board of Education to develop mentoring pilot projects and provide the Legislature with data on which programs work and how they should be funded.