Supporters of Tendoy Elementary rally in front of school ahead of school board vote Tuesday

POCATELLO — Friends and supporters of Tendoy Elementary School braved the frigid air Monday morning to rally over a controversial school board vote scheduled for Tuesday in Pocatello.

Around 30 to 40 staff, parents, and students stood out at the corner of Jefferson Avenue and East Alameda Road in front of the school to show their support. The Pocatello/Chubbuck School District 25 Board of Trustees is scheduled to hold a vote on whether it will close Tendoy Elementary School, Washington Elementary School, or neither at its regular school board meeting at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday.

“Tendoy is like my second family. Every person that I work with is somebody that I spend so much time with inside and outside school,” said Stefanie Powers, a third-grade teacher at Tendoy. “I have gotten to know the families and look forward to having students coming up from families that I’ve already had as well as families that I haven’t gotten to know yet. We’re a very tight knit community.”

RELATED | Community members speak out against closing school as part of district rezoning proposal

The school board has three options available when voting on how to balance elementary enrollment boundaries.

• Option 1 – Close Washington Elementary
• Option 2 – Close Tendoy Elementary
• Option 3 – Rebalance enrollment without closing a school

The board met on Friday afternoon for a special meeting to discuss the feedback they received at the public hearing from earlier in the week. Powers was alarmed to see some of the board members seemingly leaning towards closing Tendoy Elementary School.

“I don’t want to leave the south end of town with hardly any schools and everyone’s being bussed to the north end and there is a congestion of school’s up there by Tendoy,” said Megan Furniss, a trustee representing Zone 1 at that meeting.

“Within a short distance there’s an elementary school all the way around Tendoy and where Washington kind of sits out there all by itself,” echoed Jim Facer, a trustee representing Zone 3.

The rally held this afternoon was spontaneously organized by parents and teachers over the weekend after hearing comments like this made by the board.

“We really felt like we needed to rally together and make sure that they know how special Tendoy is,” Power said.

Melissa Aguilar, a parent of third grade student Everett Aguilar, explained to EastIdahoNews.com why they both decided to come out to the rally.

“Because we absolutely love Tendoy,” Melissa said. “He’s been going here ever since he’s been in kindergarten, and he’s in third grade now, and the teachers here are absolutely amazing.”

Everett is a student of Powers’ this year, and he spoke to how much he loves her class.

“This is one of the best classes I’ve ever been in … so far, this is the best year,” Everett said.

Both Powers and Melissa agreed with the sentiment expressed by many supporters of Washington and Tendoy that the district doesn’t put enough resources into its elementary schools.

“Yes, I do feel like it is a little bit lopsided. I have a student at Highland, and of course, Highland needs extensive repairs and rebuilding, so I’m not discrediting that or diminishing the value of that, but we don’t see as much money put into the elementary schools,” Powers said.

Powers expressed her belief the district should look further into why enrollment has declined.

“They should be looking at figuring out why enrollment is going down, why parents are choosing to go to charter schools and private schools instead of the public schools, and that’s the issue we need to be resolving. Not closing schools,” Powers said.

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