Idaho Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna posted his presentation to lawmakers on school consolidation on his blog and website, as well as the data backing up potential district consolidations that could save $15 million a year for the state education budget.  That savings would be approximately 1 percent of state spending on schools.  Luna doesn’t favor forced consolidation of school districts, but encourages districts to work together to save on administrative costs and other expenses.

“As a state, we must give districts the tools they need – and the incentives – to consolidate if it will find efficiencies and be beneficial to the students within those districts,” Luna said on his blog.

Luna’s blog post and Powerpoint presentation mirror a report to the Senate Education Committee March 25.  Idaho has 115 school districts.  Combining and consolidating those schools is a major topic of discussion, according to Luna.

Read the post on Luna’s blog here, and view the presentation on school consolidation here.