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BLUUM

Bluum

Blog

Bluum is a nonprofit organization helping Idaho become a national model for how to maximize learning outcomes for children and families.

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Stepping Into Statewide Leadership: Merrill’s First Year at the Helm

When Nanette Merrill took the helm of the Idaho Charter School Association last July, she knew she had a lot to learn. She had spent years opening and running schools in the Gem Prep network, but leading a brand-new statewide association meant mastering a different set of skills: legislative advocacy, coalition building, and unifying a diverse charter sector under one organizational voice. Six months in, Merrill said the experience has been both exhilarating and humbling. “It’s been an exciting learning curve,” Merrill said. “I naively thought I knew charters coming in. But there’s another whole layer of the wonderful work that’s happening.”

Bluum’s Ashley Cotton Selected as 2026 50CAN National Voices Fellow

Bluum is proud to announce that Ashley Cotton, Director of Outreach and Organization, has been selected as a 2026 National Voices Fellow by 50CAN. The National Voices Fellowship brings together education leaders from across the country who are working to expand opportunity for students. Fellows participate in a multi-month leadership development program focused on policy, communications, coalition building, and strategic advocacy.

Earned Autonomy for Idaho Charter Schools

Idaho’s growing and relatively high-performing public charter school sector is well-positioned to demonstrate the impact of granting school leaders greater freedom to allocate resources in ways that successful educators believe will most effectively improve student achievement. We refer to this concept as earned autonomy. How this approach can work in practice is the reason Bluum partnered with our friends at ExcelinEd to produce this report. We are deeply grateful to school finance expert Matthew Joseph and the ExcelinEd team for their work in developing this research for Idaho.

Kelly Trudeau: The Heart of Compass

Kelly Trudeau joined a group of parents trying to open a K-12 charter school called Compass in Meridian, Idaho more than 20 years ago, with no intention of ever becoming an administrator. She was a school counselor whose own children attended a charter school in nearby Nampa, and she joined the group to help rewrite parts of the charter application that the local school district kept rejecting. “I’d never thought about being an administrator,” Trudeau said. “I was a school counselor. I didn’t want to be a school administrator.”

Bluum’s 2026 Legislative Dinner

At Bluum’s Annual Legislative Dinner this month, we brought together education leaders and policymakers to focus on one of the most important levers for strong public charter schools: quality authorizing. In this video, Jim Goenner CEO of the National Charter Schools Institute, shares what quality authorizers do, and why it matters for ensuring public charter schools deliver on their promise for students and families across the Gem State.

Building Special Education Leaders From Ground Up

When Jennifer Ribordy joined Bluum in 2020 as the organization’s lone special education staffer supporting about 20 Idaho charter schools, she quickly realized the field had a problem that went deeper than burnout. “Seventy percent of special ed directors currently working have less than five years’ experience in that role,” she said, citing a West Ed study. “When you’re talking about a field that is so compliance heavy, so complicated, so legally precarious, having folks in that role that don’t stay longer than five years is really problematic.” The reasons are layered: resource shortages, complex laws, tense relationships with families, and small schools that can’t afford to split compliance work from leadership. Most directors are promoted by “baptism by fire”—a strong teacher suddenly asked to lead.