Approximately 375 Idaho Education Association members gathered in Boise last weekend for the 132nd IEA Delegate Assembly in Boise.
Delegates listen to deliberations on new business items (NBIs) on Saturday. This was the IEA’s 132nd Delegate Assembly.
IEA’s Delegate Assembly, which was held Friday and Saturday, is the highest governing body of the state’s largest union. Delegates gather from every region of Idaho and represent IEA locals from across Idaho. Each year, they gather for their union’s annual business meeting to reinvigorate the IEA spirit, celebrate successes from the past 12 months and set priorities for the year ahead. When gathered, it is the largest democratic assembly in the state.
“IEA’s democratic nature is on full display when our most engaged members gather for the Delegate Assembly. This year’s gathering was especially meaningful after such a treacherous legislative session for public education. Our members came to Boise ready and determined to do the work of the union — to fight back in the face of such looming threats to public education, their profession and their union.”
IEA President Layne McInelly
Throughout the two-day event, delegates caucused with others from their regions, proposed new business items (IEA policy proposals), approved IEA’s annual budget, endorsed new resolutions and heard updates from IEA leadership and staff.
Delegates also recognized a chosen few for their work on behalf of public education or IEA members. During a ceremony on Saturday, McInelly presented the annual awards, which focus on key areas of IEA’s advocacy for Idaho students, educators and public education, including strong relationships with policymakers, parents and the community. IEA members select the recipients.
Darcie DeLeon, an IEA board member and Twin Falls Education Association member, listens to another delegate’s point during deliberations on Friday.
The event also serves as the annual registration kickoff for the IEA Summer Institute, which will be held on the campus of Lewis-Clark State College in Lewiston, July 30-Aug. 2. This year’s theme for the annual four-day professional development event is “Stories that Shape Us.”
MAY MATTERS TAKES CENTER STAGE
May Matters, IEA’s campaign to elect a pro-public education majority to the Idaho Legislature by focusing on the 2026 primary elections next May, took the stage on Friday. A presentation from Peggy Hoy, Idaho’s representative on the National Education Association’s Board of Directors, and Chris Parri, IEA’s political director, laid out the plan.
In addition, delegates unanimously approved a new business item, or NBI, directing IEA staff to “collaborate with interest holder groups, community organizations, and other strategic partners to form a coalition to engage in statewide action for a May Matters 2026 Primary Election Campaign.”
“Through IEA’s May Matters campaign, we’re calling for change — by electing pro-public school legislators and fighting for policies that truly support students and educators,” said Hoy, who also serves with McInelly as co-chair of IEA Political Action Committee for Education and the Government Relations Committee. “As a lifelong educator and union leader, I believe our collective voice is the key to protecting and strengthening public education.”
Hoy and Parri said the campaign will focus on ousting radical lawmakers eager to mortally wound IEA and privatize public schools. Because of Idaho’s closed primary system and super-majority domination by the Republican Party, this effort must be predominantly focused on the GOP’s primary elections in May 2026, they said.
“The vast majority of Idahoans support public education, but until that majority participates in the elections that determine 80% of our legislature, the GOP primaries, pro-public education policies will be stifled. Instead, Idahoans will get public school privatization, higher taxes on working families, and culture war activism,” Parri said. “2025 showed us that the majority of the Idaho Legislature has more in common with billionaire-funded lobbyists than with Idaho families. Extremists in the Legislature are counting on us Idahoans not showing up. But their free ride is over.”
CELEBRATE IEA AUTOPAY’S SUCCESS
Delegates also celebrated the success of their union’s campaign to have every IEA member pay their union dues through IEA AutoPay, rather than payroll deduction.
West Ada Education Association President Zach Borman offers his point of view on a new business item on Friday.
The formal IEA AutoPay campaign kicked off at last year’s Delegate Assembly. In that time, the percentage of IEA members using IEA AutoPay jumped from just 20% to more than 79% by the beginning of April, according to IEA Executive Director Paul Stark.
“You did that,” Stark said to the delegates in a presentation celebrating the success of individual IEA locals in the effort. “Your hard work and engagement made that happen.”
But, Stark said, the work isn’t done until every IEA member stops using payroll deduction to pay their dues. He reminded delegates that one of the primary avenues for attacks on their union from anti-public education lawmakers is by making the use of payroll deduction illegal. One union-busting bill that failed in the Legislature this session would have done just that.
“Until every IEA member is using AutoPay, this union is not fully protected,” Stark said.
DA RAISES $25,431 FOR IEA CHILDREN’S FUND
Throughout the 2025 Delegate Assembly, IEA members dug deep on behalf of the IEA Children’s Fund.
The event’s annual two-day silent auction raised $11,028 and delegates offered up $14,403 in cash donations to the fund — bringing DA’s total contribution to the Children’s Fund to $25,431.
DA is the most important fundraiser of the year for the Children’s Fund, which provided 295 need-based grants worth $56,407 to Idaho students and their families since last winter and has provided well over $1 million to thousands of Idaho students and their families since its inception in 1996.
IEA members and others can also CLICK HERE to make a cash donation to the Children’s Fund.
