BOISE, Idaho — Former Boise teacher Laura Boulton joined the Boise School District's Healthy Relationship Committee after reaching a $400,000 settlement with the district.
- The committee aims to foster respectful, healthy, and professional workplace relationships within the district.
- Boulton seeks to improve communication between parents, teachers, and law enforcement to ensure safety.
- The committee's work is expected to be completed by the end of January, with recommendations forthcoming.
(The following is a transcription of the full broadcast story.)
I'm your neighborhood reporter Jessica Davis sitting down with former Boise teacher, Laura Boulton, learning about her role and goals within the Boise School District's Healthy Relationship Committee.
"I want to be a team player, and I want to help Boise School District," says Boulton.
Laura Boulton, former teacher at Timeberline High, is now working with the BSD on their healthy relationship committee.
This comes after she and the district reached an agreement, which includes Boulton's participation on an executive-level district committee.
Boulton says, "I've actually learned a lot. I'm just a math teacher so I wasn't trained as an administrator, through some of the protocols and processes that it takes to make policy changes so I'm really excited to be a part of it."
According to the Boise School District, this committee is focused on creating respectful, healthy, and professional workplace relationships.
Boulton says her goal is to create proactive steps to improve those relationships and focus on what actions the district should take when something happens in their schools.
"How do we build healthy relationships with parents? Perhaps start communicating with them before the school year even begins, reaching out to them, connecting them with teachers," Boulton says.
Boulton's goal is to help ensure the safety of everyone throughout the district.
She also wants to strengthen the district's involvement with law enforcement, saying that police, child protective services and special victims unit need to be involved in the district's mandatory reporting process, from the very beginning.
Boulton says, "Our goal is to come up with something this school year that can be rolled out to help teachers and the community and staff, as well as allow that program or training or whatever it might be to impact subsequent school years in the future."
Boise School District says the committee's work is expected to be completed by the end of January, and the district is looking forward to hearing recommendations based on the committee's discussions and review.
Boulton and members of the Healthy Relationships Committee have met three times already, the next meeting for the committee is Oct. 23.
