KUNA, Idaho — Student athletes, and their families, will not see a 43% fee increase after a Kuna School Board decision. Idaho News 6 spoke with a Kuna mom and coach who were at the meeting.
- At a Tuesday meeting, the board heard from the district and the public and decided to stick with a 5% increase, approved in August.
- In November, Kuna voters can expect to see a supplemental levy on the ballot.
- Kuna School District has also received nearly a million dollars to build an Agricultural 'Land Lab.' Watch our previous coverage: Kuna High School plans for 'Land Lab' on 5 acres of donated Thornton land.
(Below is the transcript from the broadcast story)
“Kids have to go to school if they want to play in their games, and they have to go to school if they want to come to practices, ya know it holds kids accountable,” said Jangula.
Lifelong athlete, coach, and Kuna mother of 8, Natalie Jangula, shared with me why keeping sports accessible to students in public schools is so important to her and many other families.
“It teaches them leadership, it teaches kids how to communicate, and it teaches them how to deal with loss,” said Jangula.
In August, the school board had already approved a 5% increase for fall non-curricular athletic fees for middle and high school activities.
With multiple kids involved in school sports, a concern of Jangula’s, and other Kuna School District parents, was the financial barrier of increasing athletic fees more.
“There are so many other kids who can not afford that. In fact there was a young woman who stood up, a high school student, who participates in two different sports, and she spoke her piece too… and it was very emotional for me,” said Jangula, when talking about her experience at the meeting.
At Tuesday’s meeting, the board listened to the district’s input, and the public, to discuss the proposal.
“You [can] leave everything at the current fee, because we can take care of that in our budget, the way it is for the rest of this year,” said Kuna Superintendent Kim Bekkedahl at the meeting.
Ultimately deciding to not increase athletics fees past 5%, ending a proposal for fees to increase by nearly 43%.
“I was really happy because the school board members did a better job of listening I think. So that was really good to see and I hope that will continue,” said Jangula.
With the resolution, there will be no need for a public hearing regarding the fees, previously scheduled for October.
Now, Kuna voters can expect to see a levy on the November Ballot… the school district tells me those taxes would pay for and maintain 37 current teachers, pay to add 6 teachers needed to reduce classroom size, and fund technology improvements as well as textbooks.
The proposed supplemental levy is over $3.5 million dollars per year, for two years.
