BY TERRY SMITH
Syringa Mountain School, Blaine County’s only publically funded charter school, announced Monday that it continues to seek funding from the Blaine County School District.
Founded in 2014, Syringa Mountain School, for grades K-6, is now in its second year of operation. As a charter school, Syringa is a separate entity from the school district and is governed by its own board of directors. Also as a charter school, Syringa is not by law allowed to collect property taxes, such as the school district does, to pay for operations.
Both Syringa and the school district receive state funding, but currently Syringa spends about $6,500 annually per student, while the school district spends about $16,500 per student, with the difference mainly explainable by district collection of property taxes.
Syringa, which has been unsuccessfully seeking funding from the school district for more than a year, announced Monday that its latest attempt came as a formal request to the district to designate Syringa as an “Innovative School.”
The designation is allowed through House Bill H0575, the “Local Innovation Schools Act,” that was approved by the state Legislature this year and has been signed into law by Idaho Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter.
The act allows school districts to reach formal agreements with charter schools within their boundaries to designate them as Innovative Schools and to provide “equalized funding” while allowing the schools to continue to be self-governed.
“We seek to inspire, engage, educate and empower, and by doing so, Syringa has won the hearts and minds of faculty, students and parents,” said Syringa Board Chair Greg Bloomfield. “We are providing an educational track that appeals to a broad cross section of Blaine County taxpayers, roughly 120 families. We need the resources to continue to grow a public ‘school or choice’ in our valley.”
Syringa Mountain School uses the Waldorf teaching methodology, which the school describes as educating the whole child through traditional studies combined with education in arts, sustainable living and experiential learning. The methodology also minimizes the use of technology at lower grade levels.
The school, located in south Hailey, currently has 130 students.