Rural county in Idaho highlights the 'tug-of-war between education professionals and extremist culture warriors'

Priest River, where the West Bonner County School District is headquartered, spans Lake
Pend Orielle in the North Idaho panhandle. (Photo by Joan Morse, The Hechinger Report)

As extremists aimed to gain school board leadership positions in an Idaho community, moms with diverse backgrounds in West Bonner County tried to keep public schools in the hands of community members versus outsiders with political agendas, reports Laura Pappano for The Hechinger Report, which covers education. "The national infection facing public schooling — the tug-of-war between education professionals and extremist culture warriors — has brought chaos and damage to West Bonner County. After this past school year ended, the superintendent acknowledged that 31 percent of teachers, counselors, and education leaders left the district, and scores of parents pulled their children, opting for homeschooling, online learning, or enrolling in another district."

Community dramas over Covid-19 vaccines and masks, English curricular choices, and LGBTQ+ issues have played out in West Bonner. "Some people overlook school board skirmishes, seeing them as trivial. For (Candy) Turner, (Dana) Douglas, and many in the West Bonner County School District, they are anything but. It’s not about Democrats versus Republicans (Turner is a registered Democrat; Douglas is 'a proud conservative Republican). It’s about the viability of public education in their community," Pappano writes. "What has happened in West Bonner County offers a warning to public school supporters elsewhere. Douglas, Turner, and others are fighting to restore normalcy to an institution that should not be up for grabs — but is."

Extremist Facebook rage and heated personal debates undid a community that once thrived with care, Pappono reports. "People filled in the gaps when it came to local needs, from sending groceries home with some children over weekends to teachers helping students brush their teeth or spending extra hours with struggling readers," Pappano explains. "But that spirit is now being tested by extremists who see a soft target in a stressed school district."

While the county's school dramas have unfolded over the last couple of years, some normalcy has been restored -- but only through a determined group of community members willing to fight. Margaret Hall, the current school board chair who faced a far-right challenger, told Pappano: “We’ve been the canary in the coal mine. What has to happen is people have to wake up and decide, ‘We don’t want someone to come in and tell us what we want. We want to decide ourselves.'"