COEUR d'ALENE - Schoolteachers from districts throughout North Idaho followed the lead of the state teachers union and threw their support behind Stan Olson, the Democratic candidate challenging Republican incumbent Tom Luna for the position of Idaho Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Roughly 40 teachers from districts throughout Idaho's five northern counties rallied for Olson Thursday afternoon in Coeur d'Alene's City Park.

"People will say that teachers should not get involved in politics ... Whenever a politician decides what resources schools are going to have, we have to get political," said Kristi Milan, a Woodland Middle School teacher and president of the Coeur d'Alene School District's branch of the Idaho Education Association.

"What we have currently as our state superintendent of schools is somebody who has no educational background," Milan said. "Idaho schools deserve better than having someone who doesn't understand how kids learn, how the system works."

Before his election in 2006, Luna was president of Scales Unlimited, Inc., a large-scale manufacturer and distributor of scales and scale equipment in Nampa.

He served on the board of the Nampa school district for seven years, and from 2003 to 2005 as a senior advisor to the U.S. Secretary of Education under President Bush.

Olson retired in June after eight years as superintendent of the Boise School District, and previously worked as a superintendent in a district in Natrona County, Wyo., and as an assistant superintendent in Kalamazoo, Mich.

During a larger rally in Boise last week, Sherri Wood, the president of the state union said teachers are outraged by the millions of dollars that have been cut from public schools under Luna's watch, and are concerned about his lack of educational experience in the schools.

"He's the first state superintendent in the history of the state of Idaho that presided over cuts to public schools," Wood said. "That's his legacy, like it or not."

The IEA has created and is funding its own Educators for Olson campaign, independent of the candidate's campaign.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.