NOTUS -- One of the groups anxious to hear Superintendent Tom Luna's education proposal on Thursday morning was the Idaho Digital Learning Academy.
The state-sanctioned online school is one of the seven agencies facing a funding phase out under the governor's balanced budget proposal.
Notus High School is like a lot of rural schools throughout Idaho, struggling to keep up with budget cuts and now facing the possible loss of a resource that helps fill the educational gap.
"My teacher is from Boise, she teaches from Mountain View High School," said student Lacy Harris. "But I have students in my class that are all from around Idaho, up in Victor, to even just Caldwell, there's kids from all over."
When we spoke with Lacy she was taking an online sociology class, something not offered at her school.
It's been an opportunity for Lacy and her classmates to take advantage of a state-funded program, her district can't afford to have on its own.
"It's a chance for my students to take foreign language and advanced math," said Notus High School Principal Benjamin Merrill. "If IDLA goes then so does that, those chances and opportunities go with it."
"We take some of the best teachers in the state and geographically redistribute them. Think about it, we have a great physics teacher in Boise, and we take that physics teacher all over the state and take them to those rural kids," said Idaho Digital Learning Academy's Chris Rapp.
Director of Curriculum and Instruction for IDLA, Rapp referred to it as an educational tool at a minimal cost.
"Rather than have every district do their own online program, we provide that service for all their students for 98 percent of the districts," said Rapp.
"We don't have the ability to offer the courses or course load that they do at Eagle High School or a large school, so with the increased requirements for graduation and the increased State Department of Education requirements, we have to provide these students an opportunity to take classes they wouldn't be able to," said Merrill.
IDLA is an alternative that superintendents and legislators decided on seven years ago and filled the curriculum gap between districts all around the state.
"Even if we are small and in a rural area that you still have the opportunities that you would have in a big school and we would succeed," said Lacy.
"IDLA has opened the doors to students regardless of where the lived and what their financial condition is, or what their family is like. They have the same opportunity as every kids throughout the state, so it really has leveled the playing field for our students throughout Idaho," said Benjamin Merrill, Notus High School.
The Idaho Digital Learning Academy says it's hopeful the Legislature will take schools like Notus into consideration before voting on the governor's proposal.
