Karla LaOrange, the new D91 superintendent, sits down with East Idaho News and shares her plans for the district’s future

IDAHO FALLS — The new superintendent of Idaho Falls School District 91 is four months into the job and despite two public legal disputes, a growing student body and other pressing issues, Karla LaOrange says she’s excited to lead the district forward and work with the community.

LaOrange, an Idaho Falls native, is the first female superintendent in the district’s history. She sat down with EastIdahoNews.com reporter Nate Eaton to answer a variety of questions.

Watch their interview in the video player above or read it below. The transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Nate Eaton, EastIdahoNews.com: You began your new position on July 1. What have you thought so far?

Karla LaOrange, D91 Superintendent: You know, what I love about District 91 and Idaho Falls is the supportive community that we have, how dedicated and passionate people are about education and our incredible teachers and staff that serve our students. It’s honestly been so fun because I get to meet a lot of new people and see their passion to serving our students. It’s so rewarding to be part of this work.

Eaton: Give us a little bit of your background.

LaOrange: I moved to Idaho Falls when I was in elementary school and graduated from Idaho Falls High School. I returned here after college and I actually student taught in the Idaho Falls School District. I was a teacher, assistant principal, a principal and worked at the district office. Then I went to Brigham Young University-Idaho for about 11 years. I had this wonderful opportunity to come back to the district and be part of this tremendous work again.

Eaton: You went to BYU-Idaho, meaning you were teaching, right?

LaOrange: You’re right. I had the opportunity to teach future teachers and that was fun. I got to see education from a different viewpoint and really work with a lot of people at the state level, which has been a tremendous advantage for me as I’ve returned to District 91.

Eaton: Some people might see coming into your position five or six months ago and think, ‘Why would I go there? They’ve tried to pass a bond three or four times, the district is really growing in a lot of areas and the previous superintendent was only here for a short amount of time.’ What made you decide to throw your name in?

LaOrange: It’s those deep roots here in Idaho Falls and a driving passion (I have) working with the teachers and the community. I really want community engagement. When we work together, there is such a desire to help our students learn and we have a great school board that are very committed to our students. When you put all that together with this great community, great school board and incredible teachers, this is like the dream of a lifetime to be able to step into this.

The bond is a challenge. And it’s one that I’m sure we’ll be tackling again down the road. There are a lot of misunderstandings about bonds in some cases, but also just the challenge of financing schools. But I really believe that working together as a community, we can provide the facilities that our students need.

Eaton: I mentioned the bonds that have passed to pay for a new high school and some elementary schools, but you were able to get a plant facilities levy passed for $33 million. You need 55% voter approval for levies versus 66.6% for bonds. But then the Idaho State Tax Commission came forward and said the vote was not valid. The district is fighting that in court and we are waiting on a ruling. What is the next step?

LaOrange: What the law says is that districts can have one levy fund. We have one fund but two plant facility levies – one for our new school and one that we’ve used for maintenance of schools. They go into one fund and that’s the interpretation of the district and our legal counsel. But the Tax Commission decided to challenge that. They acknowledged at the beginning of August that they would not recognize our levy and we are disappointed.

So our board, I believe, stood up in courage and for the patrons. We passed (the levy) with almost 70% approval and we needed 55% – but we had 70%. So clearly we have a mandate from our community and the board is stepping out and courageously carrying that out. This is a question that only the courts can decide so we’re very hopeful that we will prevail and we believe this is the right work to support our students and our growing community on the south side of town.

Eaton: If the court says the levy is valid, what will the money pay for?

LaOrange: This money would pay for a new elementary school on the south side of town where we have a lot of development going on. We will be using a similar plan or the same plan as we have at Longfellow, Dora Erickson, Ethel Boyce and Edgemont – or a slight variation of those schools – so that’s a cost savings for us. Right now we’re in the process of hiring construction management so they can work with the architects to design the school so that we don’t have a lot of additional expenses. It saves us money and we avoid change orders. Then we would build that school if we’re able to prevail in court.

Eaton: How do you handle the aging high school and other areas that are growing? What are the next steps?

LaOrange: The final decision will be up to our board to tackle and decide if we’re going to run another bond and whether we would renovate or build a new high school. Clearly we need to address our facilities so the board, I am sure, will be making that determination probably next school year. Then we will execute that plan and we’ll bring the question to the voters and be asking for their support.

Idaho Falls High School has tremendous tradition behind it and we want to continue that legacy. But it’s also a facility that is aging and needs some help.

We have a couple of other areas where we have growing populations and again, that’s a question for the board. We’ll be trying to address those issues and on the west side where we see some growth as well.

Eaton: What is your desire? Would you build a new high school and turn the old high school into a middle school? What would you decide?

LaOrange: That’s a hard question for me because I have seen schools that are older even than Idaho Falls High School in other states that have had the resources to maintain and upgrade the facility. They’ve been done really well. If we get a new high school, we have the land for it, we already have the Tiger Athletic Complex and we could use the old high school to grow our Career Technical Education Center program. It is such a strong program and we could serve other communities like Ririe, Shelley and Firth.

That program is downtown but we’re constrained by the building. If we could move that to Idaho Falls High School and open up opportunities to learn for our students and learn things that can take them straight into a career, there’s a high demand for that. It would allow us to continue offering bigger programs that serve more students while still upgrading Idaho Falls High School with a new school. So I think I would lean that way. I will follow whatever the board wants but that is, I think, the best plan for our students – not just now, but this carries them forward and opens up all these incredible pathways for career and post high school opportunities. That’s really what we want. We want our students to thrive and to grow.

Eaton: Another issue that’s been in the news lately is a civil complaint issued to former Superintendent Dr. Jim Shank and Public Information Specialist Margaret Wimborne. The fine was for $375 total for the employees allegedly inappropriately using taxpayer funds to promote the bond. Why didn’t the district just pay the fine rather than paying all the legal fees?

LaOrange: The original complaint that I saw wasn’t that amount of money. One of the fines was $1,500 so it’s a little more money. But the reason the board decided to stand up, and I support that decision, is it’s akin to not speeding and getting cited and saying, ‘Well, just pay it anyway’ when nothing has been done wrong. What we do in America is that we stand up. That is what we do. We say we need to take this to court and have it evaluated more closely.

Jim and Margaret both acted according to legal counsel and really the crux of this case comes down to whether there was misinformation. The wording that is being cited is that we said our buildings were aging or aged and that we had overcrowding issues. Those are facts. We are not trying to sway voters by providing that information. So I think this is the right thing to do. We do have facility needs but also our employees didn’t do anything wrong.

This is a complaint that really wasn’t necessary. In Ada County, something similar happened. The prosecutor’s office had a question about some campaign materials, they met with the district, they talked through it and were able to resolve any concerns and develop an understanding that didn’t happen here. We will defend our employees, especially when they have not done anything wrong. Whenever they haven’t done anything wrong, we will defend them. It’s the right thing to do.

Eaton: What do you foresee the biggest challenge is in the district looking forward the next three to five years?

LaOrange: Facilities are clearly one of our biggest challenges. We do have buildings that are aging and we do have overcrowding. So we need to address those and we need to work with the community to help come up with solutions for that and get their ideas. Community engagement will be a big piece of that. It’s also helping our students post secondary – making sure that the programs that we offer and the things that we do help our students who want to go to college, but also help our students who are interested in careers, and that we have really good solid teaching and learning going on in every classroom.

Eaton: Any ideas that you hope to implement in the next year or so?

LaOrange: We have several things that we want to do. We’ve been working with our teachers and we’re starting a committee to look at how we can provide more support to students to help them perform at higher levels and serve students who may be our second language learners, who have a learning disability or other challenges – help them learn at higher levels and help them stay in school. We’re going to be pretty aggressive on this and be coming to the board with a proposal in February. Community engagement and parent involvement is really important to me so we are starting school level advisory councils that will include parents and patrons. We’re defining a patron as someone who lives in a school’s boundary but has no children enrolled in any school in Idaho Falls. I think those are populations that have a lot to offer and are often overlooked. They will also be on those school advisory councils. Then we’re going to bring all of those school councils together in the spring and they will be working together to give the board input.

I think it gives us a deeper partnership. It’s more than little cottage meetings and sharing information, it really creates two way dialogue where they will be deeply involved in helping us plan and move our work forward. That’s really exciting to me.

We also want to expand our our career technical program. We need to be able to offer more to our students so we will look at how to grow that program. Down the road we’ll be looking at Compass Academy. It’s our magnet school and I think our middle school students could really benefit from having an option like that as well for our students who like project based learning. Those are some of the things that we have going on. I think those are all exciting. I love that they are student centered and community involved. That’s really what it’s all about.

Eaton: We probably get two or three calls every week from a parent, not just in Idaho Falls but across eastern Idaho, who has a child who’s been bullied. How do you plan to address this issue?

LaOrange: Bullying is a challenge nationwide and it is a hard question. We have to have a multi-pronged approach. One of those things we’re doing is we have a good curriculum that we use in our elementary schools – just talking about how we interact with each other and what do we do when we start to feel angry? We have great counselors both at the elementary and the high school level. One of the things that I love in our schools are the Hope Squads. They have been wonderful. They’ve invited me to their classrooms and I was in Eagle Rock last week. They shared problems they had identified and solutions they have to those.

The district has some great tools that allows students to report in a safe way using technology if they feel like they’re being bullied. Our response to those is really high and pretty prompt. This allows students to report things if they don’t feel like they can and get some support. Bullying won’t go away unless we know about it and we have to confront it as well as help the person who’s doing the bullying to understand it’s not appropriate and help them learn other behaviors.

I want every child to feel safe when they come to school. That’s a high priority for us. Our number one priority is school safety and that includes bullying. We’re working hard to confront that and really would encourage parents to talk to their kids and we can partner together on this.

Eaton: Is the district still facing a substitute teacher shortage or bus driver shortage?

LaOrange: We are still facing a challenge with substitute teachers. The unemployment rate is low and whenever unemployment rate is low, the substitute teaching pool is smaller. Our teachers in our junior highs and high schools – they will fill in for one class period when they have their planning time. I appreciate their support for that. In elementary, sometimes we end up with assistant principals filling in in a classroom. We do our best to fill those but it’s definitely a challenge.

We’ve been able to keep up with bus drivers but we’re always right on the edge. We’ve been able to keep up with our needs and keep our drivers. I think we work really hard to let our drivers know they’re appreciated and that they’re really an important part of our work.

Eaton: Is there anything you want to add?

LaOrange: I just want to add that I’m really excited. I feel very fortunate and humbled honestly to be part of this work. We do have a great community. The challenges are huge but the work and the effort that I see and the goodness of people – I’ve had businesses come forward and offer to help in different ways – all of it adds up. Others have come and offered to read to kids at school and I just continue to be so grateful for that support. I can’t help but believe that working together, we can confront the challenges in education and I think we can overcome them. We can help our students learn at high levels and help them feel safe because that is important. That’s really the joy of this work – partnering with educators and parents to make that happen. I love being here. I feel really lucky.