Voices for Education: Heidi Agee York

Heidi (center), with her daughters Brynnley and Makenna, her dad, Mark, and grandmother, Irene

Upon moving back “home” 11 years ago, my husband, Eric, and I looked forward to all the things our hometowns had to offer our family. Even though the rivalry of him being a GHS Bulldog alum and me a CVHS Ram alum, we were excited to lay down roots with our girls back home, including the generations of family and friends we had left behind. This included everything we remembered fondly growing up in our neck of the woods: camping and hunting, one traffic light and dirt road drives, opportunities in 4-H and athletics, morels and huckleberries, the smell of harvest and summer rains, and Friday night lights and pep band at basketball games. These are things we identified with as “home”, and we felt so blessed to have the opportunity to move back and enroll our oldest at GEMS, diving into her classroom, the school, and our surrounding community. Moving back home was a privilege for our family. Our roots are deep in this area, but we had been away for fifteen years pursuing careers and skill sets with just the hope that we would get to move closer to home.

We’re opting to be part of the solution. It’s time to dig in, folks.

In the eleven years that we’ve been home now, we recognize that there is still no place we’d rather be raising our girls, amongst family and friends with similar values and hopes. Furthermore, we aren’t walking away from home, even amid job opportunities to move, levy failures, and feeling a lack of support for our girls’ education. We also are not hardening our hearts. Instead, we’re opting to be part of the solution. It’s time to dig in, folks. It is time to have discussions that are productive and find common ground on the importance of our local schools and our local money. It’s time to vote, stay informed by attending meetings to ascertain facts, advocate for change, email our local school board members when concerns arise or ideas come to light, recognize that you may be incorrect in the ideas that you think will provide funding and broaden the scope of research for tangible ideas, and it is time to bridge the gaps and unite in owning our communities and schools. It’s time to be advocates for locally funded public education in our Mountain View School District (MVSD) 244.

Why is this levy so important? Why is this worth the personal investment? The reasons are so numerous, and the ripple effect is wide, but I will start with, what drew you here? What keeps you here? Furthermore, what do you want out of our Grangeville, Clearwater Valley, and Elk City students? Free access to all the public land you could imagine out your back door might be your real perk to living in the MVSD. The beautiful privilege of waking up to clear blue skies and carrying a handgun on your hip might be another person’s draw to living in the MVSD. Having incredible access to medical care in a rural area, including medical doctors, emergency care, obstetrics, eye doctors, dentists, surgeons, physical therapists, nutritionists, massage therapists, and home health care professionals while only having to traverse the free highways with the same traffic that was there yesterday as is tomorrow or the next day might be another patron’s real perk to living in the MVSD. Developing students who pursue educational interests and are honored at national conferences, creating athletes who shovel driveways for the elderly, watching committed student-athletes compete at state-level athletic events with great success, and reaping the benefit of students who create and implement personal senior projects that give back to their communities as a graduation requirement, might be another person’s draw of living in the MVSD.

Watching committed student athletes compete all season as a team in our local gyms and on our fields and continuing that at the state level athletic events with great success but learning lesson about falling short of these goals could be a draw for living in the MVSD. The opportunity to attend local concerts and theater to watch students display their various multi-talents might be a patron’s real perk to living in the MVSD. Attending school with the same group of students from kindergarten through high school graduation could be a draw to living in the MVSD. Watching students create and implement personal senior projects that give back to their communities as a graduation requirement, might be another patron’s real perk to living in the MVSD. Having a stake in our small protected local schools with voting privileges and open school board meetings could also be a patron’s real perk to living in the MVSD.

You see, our local community and the local schools really are interconnected. We don’t get free access to public lands without then having a deficit of funding for our local schools, requiring a local levy for our schools. We don’t get free and easy low populated driving conditions in rural Idaho without having a deficit of funding, requiring a local levy for our schools. We don’t retain or attract good healthcare professionals without a strong and functioning school, which is in part funded by the local levy. We don’t maintain conservative values and culture in our schools due to exceptional educators without our local levy. We don’t attract excellent educators without our emphatic support of the local levy for our schools. We don’t get to voice input on the decisions of our school board without supporting local control of our schools, which includes the local levy. We don’t get to see students soar to their full potential without proper teacher-to-student ratios and adequate staffing without the support of the local levy for our schools. Families less rooted in our area will move (some already have) to enhance the education opportunities for their children that other schools offer through Physical Education and Art Programs, Home Economics, participation in Honors Courses, Music Education, Athletics, Future Farmers of America, Business Professionals of America, and Youth Government, without the support of the local levy for our schools.

And, for those of you worried about the quality of education or content, I would invite you to come take a peek. Sit in a classroom, chat with our students, and visit with an educator, but just consider visiting the school on a clear day, otherwise, you’ll dodge the roof leaks and 5-gallon buckets set up in classrooms due to lack of maintenance and repair, which is another reason to support the local levy for our schools.

We will never recover from the heartache and dismay of closing a high school and elementary school …

With all of this said, still, one of the biggest concerns of all for me personally, is that as a school district of three communities, we will never recover from the heartache and dismay of closing a high school and elementary school, requiring those students to commute an additional minimum thirty minutes one way, to finish their elementary and secondary education, which is what will happen without the support of our local levy. These aren’t threats, these are the realities of a failed levy passed down to our current school board.

If you have followed our administration at the district office and the new school board, you know that there have been numerous changes in responses to public input. In fact, not all board members were elected on the notion that they supported a levy. However, I am relieved and alert to say that after many hours of work, gaining knowledge outside of comfortable circles, holding numerous public meetings, and maintaining open, respectful discussions, our entire board agreed that the supplemental levy was indeed necessary. The levy doesn’t buy frill and fluff, it simply maintains our current school district.

Normally, with perks come sacrifice or even a pay-it-forward mentality. If we could recognize that by supporting the local levy, we are paying it forward and preserving the values of our area by owning our local schools, I think it would be an obvious win-win situation. Instead of the parking passes we used to pay for to access the sightseeing hikes we took in a previous state where we lived, my family prefers unlimited use of our public land and accepts that it will take a personal check for the local levy to offset the budget deficit created by untaxed public land in our MVSD. The energy spent by some attacking our schools, educators, administrators, students, and parents could truly become effective if altered to seek solutions with real funding options and real change. This is a matter of bridging the gap that was created by the State in order for schools to be governed locally, not a matter of opinion or political party.

Maybe now is a great time to look in the mirror and reflect on how you got where you are today.

Eric and I both grew up in public education in the (then) Joint School District 241. Our siblings, our cousins, our parents, and our aunts and uncles thrived in the same local public schools. In fact, our grandparents and great aunts and great uncles were also alumni of local public schools. What about you? Who paid for your education? Did you benefit from public education as well? Did you enjoy home economics? Who was the fastest short-hand student in your class? When you were uprooted from Stites High School to join CVHS, was that welcomed as an easy transition with just an extra 3-mile commute? And, how did those CVHS kids take to the Stites students joining the school? What year did the GHS boys track team win state and what memories were created? What skills do you attribute from your youth legislature experiences in high school to your success today? Which coach do you still stay in touch with, sharing your life joys and struggles? Which teacher most profoundly influenced your career pathway today? Do you feel any move whatsoever to pay it forward? Maybe now is a great time to look in the mirror and reflect on how you got where you are today. I recognize there are many people blessed with private opportunities, but we have far more students enrolled in our public schools in our school district, both historically and currently, who need this opportunity for free public education.

With all this said, I am reminded of the great educators I had in my life at Clearwater Valley. I recently attended the funeral of one of the most influential educators in my life. As I spoke that day, quickly my nerves overtook me, and my emotions were challenged, and as I looked around the room, I was easily reminded of the numerous amazing educators I had through the years. I was so thankful for the opportunity to see and feel the difference a supported educator can make in the lives of so many young people, even in the depths of sorrow at a funeral. I don’t know for sure how many lives he touched, and I can’t quite rely on the math that was being done that day, but the ripple was huge and wide and deep as we all stood and recognized him. To say that this type of educator is a lost art is false, as I know firsthand, that our girls will one day have the same experience. Even in the days of failed levies, our educators showed up! Our girls will look back at their years in the MVSD public schools with great adoration and memories of educators and opportunities, easily recognizing how their time as students shaped them positively into who they will become as adults through the extracurricular activities and leadership opportunities they pursued while maintaining excellence in the classroom.

As a multi-generational family with roots deep in this area, we urge you to vote IN FAVOR of the local supplemental levy to continue the tradition of local education founded on local values.

Heidi Agee York

Grangeville