KUNA, Idaho — Kuna voters in last week's election supported the Kuna School District supplemental school levy — giving the district $7.2 million dollars over two years for teacher salaries, technology and textbooks.
- The levy is for the 2025-26 and 2026-27 school years.
- The levy will help maintain 37 teaching positions and add 6 more — with money also going to technology and textbooks
- About 13,000 more people voted on this levy compared to the May election in which a Kuna supplemental school levy failed.
(Below is the transcript from the broadcast story)
"The supplemental Levy that just passed is for the 25-26 and 26-27 school year," says Assistant Superintendent Jason Reddy with the Kuna School District.
He tells me a lot of work went into informing the community about their supplemental levy ahead of the November election.
"We have done a good job in educating our public, about the public school funding model in Idaho. And that so many school districts need to have a levy on the books to just maintain normal operations," says Reddy.
Reddy says after making major budget cuts this year, securing this $7.2 million will allow the district to add teaching positions and maintain smaller class sizes.
If it failed, dozens of teaching positions would have been cut.
"This Levy didn't really come with lots of changes. It came with, let's maintain what we do. I think we will be adding six teachers to our system for the next two school years... I am so grateful that we get to keep our 37 teachers and maintain the class sizes and the programs that we have. I think that, that's huge," added Reddy.
"The community realized that it was hard and that we would have to make more cuts. We had nothing left to cut really, other than some teaching positions which we didn't want to do," says Kuna School Board Chairman Kimberlee Nixon.
She says this levy is going to have a big impact on students.
"The passing of this gives our kids a brighter future, it's about them. They're gonna be able to have full-time kindergarten, we're gonna be able to lower some class sizes," says Nixon.
"Definitely a feeling of relief. And I felt, I definitely felt that when I saw the results," says Mary Stewart, a Kuna parent.
She hopes smaller class sizes will benefit her second grade daughter.
"It really gives more time for the kids who have questions, the kids who need a little bit more explanation… You know, those kiddos have questions and when you only have a certain amount of time, but you've got 26 kids, you can't get around to each one of them," says Stewart.
