POCATELLO — Idaho First Lady Lori Otter was in the Gate City Wednesday morning as part of a tour of Eastern Idaho, during which she advocated her support for three Idaho proposition that would retain the state’s Students Come First education legislation.

The three propositions, numbers 1, 2 and 3, are so called repeal propositions that ask Idahoans vote yes of they approve of the plan already implemented or to vote no if they would like to see the changes repealed.

Otter’s Pocatello stop Wednesday morning was at the Bannock County Republicans’ headquarters, located at 1035 Yellowstone Ave.

Otter, wife of Idaho Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter, who was an educator for much of her career, teaching English, health and physical education also spent time as a school administrator. Her experience during the past few years, as Idaho’s first lady, has been in the policy implementation arena, giving her what she calls a unique perspective on education.

But initially, when the Students Come First plan came under fire, Otter said she made it clear that it was a debate she wanted no part of.

“Then I went down to one of the hearings and I started listening to some of the things being said by the other side, and how kids were being used, and it absolutely made me furious,” she said. “I went upstairs and told my husband, ‘I am all in, what do you need me to do?’

“There is nothing in these three propositions, that as a teacher, I would have a problem with. And I would tell you if I did. For example, if the pay for performance was based on proficiency, that would be a deal breaker for me. If the technology was only going to go to some schools, that’s a deal breaker for me.”

Otter said the point of the Students Come First program is to graduate Idaho students from high school while also preparing them for college without the need for remediation. She said 48 percent of Idaho students who graduate high school and go on to college need some kind of remediation education during their first year of secondary education.

“We have a great graduation rate, but some of the things we struggle with is this first year remediation rate at the college level,” she said. “Of those who do go on to college, we lose about 42 percent of those kids after the first year because they have had to take so many remediation courses. Now instead of a four- or five-year plan, they see that they are on a six-year plan and it just gets overwhelming.”

She calls many of the changes that were implemented with Students Come First a direction that will retain the best teachers Idaho has to offer, rewarding those who are best at growing students, not just helping them achieve proficiency.

Among those standards of educational employment that are removed include tenure, a teacher’s guarantee of future employment after a certain number of years on the job, and the automatic increasing pay based on numbers of years in the classroom.

The policy of terminating employees based primarily on seniority is also gone. Those decisions are now based on teacher performance, based on evaluations of those classrooms performed by administrators.

Should the propositions fail and a majority of Idaho voters say no, all of the changes would be repealed, she said.