In a twist of irony, Coeur d’Alene School District students have announced that they will be staging a walkout on Friday, March 24th to protest the recent failure of and in support of the recently repurposed levy.
According to a letter written by Zach Anderson, Nathan Edmonds, Bradley Gilmore, Rowen Lair, and Luke Sharon, the “walkout is not meant to show that our education is unnecessary, nor that we are ungrateful for what we have. Instead, it is to demonstrate that there is no point to education with no support of our community.”
The authors claimed that the burden of the levy should not be an issue: “While there are concerns over taxes being raised due to the passing of the levy (about $110 in taxes for $550k of taxable property), there is promising news; a bill is likely to pass in the Idaho state legislature, which will allocate $100 million from the state sales tax fund (without raising taxes) to all Idaho school districts based on attendance, specifically to cover bond and levy payments for citizens.”
The letter voiced concerns about the district’s ability to pay teachers, bus drivers, etc. as well as concerns that extracurricular activities and sports will be significantly underfunded or dropped all together. They also shared concerns over weather they would be able to obtain a sufficient number of Chromebooks.
According to the Instagram profile (@lchs_levy_support) supporting the movement, school administration is supportive of the walkout: “LCHS ADMINISTRATION IS FULLY BACKING OUR RIGHT TO WALKOUT. (We spoke with Principal Clifford yesterday, who confirmed that there will be NO repercussions for participating in the walkout.)”
The walkout is scheduled to take place on Friday at 2:05 pm.
Read the full letter here:
