COEUR d'ALENE - The level of support the Coeur d'Alene School District receives from the community it serves was noted as one of the public school system's defining characteristics Wednesday by Superintendent Matt Handelman.

"I've appreciated it. I've been wowed by it," Handelman said at the start of a two-hour "State of the District" presentation at the Coeur d'Alene Public Library.

The roughly 60 people who attended the event didn't have to look far for evidence of that type of strong community support. It was all around them.

The information session was organized and hosted by the school district and the Coeur d'Alene Education Partnership, an independent nonprofit education advocacy group created in 2012 by local, private citizens.

Handelman kicked off the presentation by providing a snapshot of the district's performance.

With 10,400 students, Coeur d'Alene is the sixth-largest school district in Idaho, and according to Handelman, it has been the highest-performing large school district on the Idaho Standards Achievement Test.

The ISAT will no longer be given in Idaho schools now that the Idaho Core Standards are in place. With the new standards comes a new test, the Smarter Balanced Assessment, which will be field-tested this year.

Following a presentation by Wendell Wardell and Laura Rumpler on the district's latest security enhancements and emergency notification procedures, Mike Nelson, the district's director of curriculum and assessments, and Sorensen Elementary teacher Shanna Marshall, discussed the new core standards and the accompanying test.

The Idaho Core Standards are this state's version of the Common Core Standards.

Nelson said that Coeur d'Alene has been ranked the top school district in the state when it comes to academic performance, but there hasn't been any way to gauge the district against other states' top-ranked districts, because each state sets its own academic standards. That will change now that there are common standards that will align across the states.

He noted that the curriculum is still determined by each state, and pointed to Idaho's plan to continue teaching students cursive writing, a subject not covered in the Common Core.

Nelson said nine Coeur d'Alene School District teachers helped design and create the questions on the Smarter Balanced Assessment. The assessment is the standardized test being used by 27 of the 47 states that have adopted the Common Core standards.

Shanna Marshall, a fourth-grade teacher at Sorensen, was one of those teachers.

During a question and answer period, several parents shared concerns that some economically disadvantaged students may be at a learning and testing disadvantage because they don't have computers at home.

Marshall, who also serves as a technology leader in the district, said that a recent survey of parents and guardians has shown that many students, regardless of their family's income level, have access to computing devices.

"It's a much higher percentage than you might think," Marshall said.

Another parent asked how it was possible to tell if a student was actually learning more by using a device.

Marshall said that the teaching power of a device like an iPad comes from things like its camera and video-recording capacity.

"That's where you really are able to start to measure what they're learning - by what they're producing," Marshall said.

Superintendent Matt Handelman spoke again to the crowd at the end of the session. He shared some personal information about himself, his leadership philosophies and tied that into the district's ongoing strategic planning process.

Handelman said he's a native New Yorker with more than 25 years of experience in education. He's a bicyclist, a reader, a husband, a father and a sports fan.

"I probably listen to too much sports radio in my car," he said.

He said he ascribes to the "servant leadership" philosophy, believing that he serves those he's charged with leading. Handelman said he believes teaching is a science and an art, and that among his top priorities are good communication, providing a safe and challenging learning environment, and pushing students to make sure they're prepared for the future.

One of Handelman's personal philosophies, something that inspires him, comes from a book titled, "Work Hard. Be Nice."

"We'll go far doing those kinds of things," he said.

He asked the audience to feel free to reach out to him with thoughts, questions or concerns.

Handelman urged them to be frank when contacting him.

"Tell me what you think I need to know, not just what you think I need to hear," he said.

The presentation was recorded and will be broadcast on Coeur d'Alene city cable channel 19.