Biggest lesson from the horror show in the West Bonner school district: Vote | Opinion
The saga continues at West Bonner school district — and they’re still not rid of Branden Durst as the superintendent.
Board members in the North Idaho district Wednesday night held a truncated meeting that failed to part ways with their unqualified and embattled “leader.”
With two school board members gone because they were recalled by voters at least in part for hiring Durst, a third board member sympathetic to Durst called in to Wednesday’s board meeting saying, “I’m sitting along the highway soaking wet and covered in mud and trying to get home,” according to Idaho Education News.
This came a week after that board member, Troy Reinbold, failed to show up for another meeting, which had to be canceled for lack of a quorum.
And so the horror show that is the West Bonner district continues.
The whole slow-motion disaster offers some lessons for everyone in Idaho.
First and foremost, it’s so important to vote.
The number of people who voted for the two board members who wanted Durst was extremely low, typical for school board elections. In all, 844 people went to the polls in 2021 to elect the folks who hired Durst, a far-right political pugilist who worked for the Idaho Freedom Foundation, which opposes public education, and had no experience as a school administrator or teacher. He lacked even the necessary certification to be a superintendent. He has supported using taxpayer dollars to fund private schools.
The effort to recall the two board members was extraordinary. A core group of 10 residents, with a hundred participating, spent months knocking on more than 300 doors, placing 500 yard signs, mailing 3,600 flyers, posters and letters and calling about 2,000 voters, according to Idaho Ed News, culminating in the August recall of Keith Rutledge and Susan Brown, with a total of 2,162 votes cast, nearly 2-to-1 in favor of recall.
It would have been much easier to just go vote in the first place.
Even after the board members were recalled, they tried to meet twice, in the small window between the election and the official certification of the votes.
It just goes to show how some people will manipulate the system to try to skirt democratic processes.
It’s sad that we have to put guardrails on our democracy against those who would abuse the loopholes in our system, but it’s clear we can’t always rely on honesty and honor, and we can’t always count on public officials to do the right thing.
Unfortunately, we need a state law to close that loophole following recall elections to ensure that bad actors don’t try to take action contrary to the will of the voters after the voters have spoken.
But everyone would be better served if voters were engaged and made sure we don’t put these bad actors in office in the first place.
In addition to West Bonner, we’ve seen this play out in the Nampa School District, where board members banned nearly two dozen books.
The lesson from West Bonner is particularly salient now, as Idaho voters face school board elections in November.
In addition to a number of mayoral and city council races on the Nov. 7 ballot across the Treasure Valley, West Ada, Kuna, Vallivue, Caldwell, Nampa, Marsing, Homedale and Parma all have contested school board races.
Research the candidates and vote accordingly, or else you just might end up with Durst as your superintendent. He is looking for a job, after all.
Statesman editorials are the unsigned opinion of the Idaho Statesman’s editorial board. Board members are opinion editor Scott McIntosh, opinion writer Bryan Clark, editor Chadd Cripe, newsroom editors Dana Oland and Jim Keyser and community members Mary Rohlfing and Patricia Nilsson.
