First of all, I want to clarify some things, as many have commented on this site with questions that I hope this answers.

My name is Sanford Staab, and I volunteered to help Casey Smith, at his request, to create a website to fight the 2023 SD244 2-year Levy. It was my understanding that he would contribute to the content, and I would just make it available for him and help him with technical issues.

It turns out, Casey gave me a very rough outline of his first article, and I edited and published it on tHIS website. Since that time, Casey has not contributed a single word to this website, and so I have maintained it as a general bucket for levy and school issues, and so most of the opinions on this site are mine.

I really do care about kids and education. It is the key piece that protects our freedoms. Indoctrination of the young has always been a path used by governments to gain totalitarian control of a people.

I see some good things happening these days. The deconsolidation has given us in the Kooskia and Elk City areas more control over our local public schools.

Another good thing to think about is the recent passage of H397 co-sponsored by our own great senator, Cindy Carlson, which mandates strong civics education and testing for graduation on the ideas that made this country great.

Another great thing, in my mind, is that our new trustee board for SD245 appears willing and ready to work with our community to cut unnecessary costs and get more local control over our schools. I got this impression from the recent town-hall meeting the board gave in response to a request by Rose Pogue, a well-known and very active lady in our area, who is concerned about our schools and taxes.

Several years ago, I attended a fundraiser for the Clearwater Valley High School and found the community involvement and energy contagious. We have many good people here who care about our kids’ education.

With the deconsolidation, I feel our community has a chance to step up and take control of our local district to make it ours instead of the teachers’ union or the state or even an uncooperative and secretive board of trustees.

The new SD245 trustees have already sent some people to investigate a program that not only gives students hands-on experience in machine manufacturing but also makes money for the school at the same time.

That is radical!

The entire public education system is a complete mess, and even our 2-year veteran trustee, Mr. Jon Menough, has admitted that after all this time, he only feels he understands about half of the school budget and funding process.

We also have a lot of great homeschoolers in our area who have completely isolated themselves from much of the community and the public schools (at least that is my impression as I cannot even obtain their email addresses, and the trustee board has no idea how many homeschoolers there are in our district). This is understandable given the history of usurpation and regulation of education that has interfered with homeschoolers in this nation. But it is a shame that all the energy and resources of this group do not contribute to our public school system except to pay their property taxes (which is not fair!).

But wouldn’t it be amazing if we could get those homeschoolers to use and help the public school system in our district? To unify the families in our area towards the goal of a great moral and economical education for our kids?

This brand new trustee board is now faced with a very uncertain financial future as the districts proceed to separate themselves from each other. It is a tough time for them, and they have decided to ask for a relatively modest levy for one year to help them ensure the success of their new district.

Jon Menough has said publicly that even if the levy passes, the tax burden on us should be significantly less than it was before deconsolidation. (That is, if the County doesn’t double our assessments again!)

The passage of the levy in 2023 was accomplished with the help of many in the SD244 district that benefited directly or indirectly from its funds.

In SD245, this will not be the case. Many in our area have been carrying a burden for a district that mostly serves Grangeville. This is similar to why both Riggins and Cottonwood deconsolidated from the SD244 district. Both appear to be happier with more local control, and the schools in Cottonwood at least appear to be doing much better in their new independent situation, both by better education quality and a reduced financial burden. (Note that I hear some wealthy private parties foot some of that burden, which I would love to see our community do as well.)

Don’t get me wrong, if I were king, there would be no publicly funded education except for a free 3-year school for basic Reading, Writing, Civics, Morality, and how to think, learn, and discern, as Thomas Jefferson first proposed in Virginia.

So with all that background in mind, I have decided to vote FOR the LEVY this year! Yes, you heard that right – someone who writes for this no-levy website, who has no kids in the local schools, who paid for his own kids’ education privately, who is living on social security, and who suffers greatly from the increased property taxes in our area is going to give this board a 1-year chance to succeed.

Why? If we don’t pass on our light that we received from the previous generation to the next one, we will have failed to do our minimum duty owed to our collective future.

I very much hope our community can step up to seize this opportunity to maybe get a better public education for our local kids at an affordable price. Maybe we can have a charter school that the homeschoolers can tolerate and bring our community together again.

I would not be surprised if the levy failed, and I hope the district can survive if such is the case.

Thanks for reading my 2 cents of thought here!

Don’t forget to vote on the levy this Tuesday, Nov. 4th, 2025.