By BETHANY BLITZ

Staff Writer

Idaho public schools could no longer be required to teach climate change, at least for the next year.

Last Thursday, the House Education Committee passed a temporary rule on science standards proposed by the State Department of Education, only after removing five subsections mostly pertaining to climate change, and requested the SDE rewrite those sections.

What gets approved by the House and Senate Education Committees this year, will be in effect for one year until the committees reconsider the rule and the five rewritten subsections during the 2018 legislative session.

“This does not prohibit anything from being taught,” said Jeff Church, the chief communications officer for Education. “This is the minimum standard: districts still have local control of what curriculum they adopt.”

Rep. Paul Amador, R-Coeur d’Alene, made an initial motion to approve the rule as proposed, but his motion failed.

Amador said the new science curriculum has been in the works for more than two years now, with the House Education Committee wanting more transparency in the process of creating the curriculum. However, Amador believes the process has been as transparent as possible.

The SDE has gathered data and input from teachers, administrators and the public.

“What I ran on, what I take to heart, is let’s get as much politics out of education,” Amador said. “I’m not an expert so I’m going to rely on the content experts… The SDE put forward what I think is a highly developed set of standards in the best interest of students in Idaho.”

Idaho Education News reported Rep. Scott Syme, R-Caldwell, urged committee members to reject the climate change language in the proposed science curriculum last Thursday because it didn’t teach “both sides of the debate” — the debate being to what extent humans affect climate change.

Lisa Sexton, the assistant superintendent of the Lakeland School District, said she’s just glad some of the standards got approved.

“The climate change thing is a political issue. I see it as a win for us that we’re adopting standards more in line with the rigor we are providing in our classrooms,” she said. “I’d rather see us adopt part of the standards than to vote to not use any of it.”

Jerry Keane, the superintendent of the Post Falls School District, said he wasn’t surprised by the committee’s decision, and he doesn’t anticipate much change in his district’s science curriculum regarding climate change.

“We definitely talk about it, but we don’t teach a particular view about it,” he said. “We let the students develop their own opinions based on the information out there.”

Matt Handelman, the superintendent of the Coeur d’Alene School District, said climate change has become more and more political, and even though the House Education Committee’s ruling doesn’t require the district to change its climate change curriculum, the district could have to address it differently.

The Coeur d’Alene School District notifies parents when classes are going to cover ‘controversial issues’ — such as sex-ed in the elementary schools. Parents have the right to opt their child out of those lessons.

“In our district some people see [climate change] as a controversial issue. Would climate change fall into that category, and who makes that decision? I hope it won’t go that way but it might,” Handelman said.

“You’d hope a decision like [curriculum adoption] wouldn’t become political, but it is because people feel so strongly about it.”

The temporary rule will go before the Senate Education Committee Thursday, Feb. 23, then the full Senate and the full House will vote to approve all rules from this legislative session in one bill.

Next Thursday, if the Senate Education Committee approves the science standards rule in its entirety, only the part approved by both the Senate and House Education Committees will be put forth to the full chambers.

The temporary rule, along with the five rewritten sections, will appear before both Education Committees in the 2018 legislative session in hopes of being passed as a pending rule.