Lance Hansen preparing for next challenge

May 10—Outgoing Lewiston School District Superintendent Lance Hansen, 56, planned to retire next year. Instead, he’ll take on an even bigger job.

“I never say no to opportunities,” Hansen explained.

He wasn’t looking for a new job, but the opening for Kennewick School District superintendent found him. So, on June 30, he’ll leave the 5,000-student Lewiston school district for the 19,000-student district on the confluence of the Yakima and Columbia rivers in Washington.

The 18 years Hansen spent in Lewiston school leadership posts — four as superintendent, eight as assistant superintendent, and in principal and vice principal slots — created deep experience.

That experience is symbolized in the shiny new Lewiston High School built in 2020 with a $62 million bond. School leaders since the 1990s tried to replace the old school, and it was finally backed by voters in 2017. Hansen was part of that long effort. He leaves as construction for the school’s $9.2 million sports complex is about to begin.

What matters to Hansen is the message the community gives whenever it directs school officials to undertake projects.

“I would hope we mirrored the investment they have in our children,” he said.

That investment puts science as well as gifted and talented teachers in the district’s elementary schools. It widens the range of middle school programming. It creates diverse high school musical performance options: choir, band, jazz band and orchestra. It has Lewiston ranked second in the state in third graders who can read.

Hansen has intentionally involved the community in decision-making. The district enlists about 150 people a year into “workgroups” to guide decisions on issues ranging from cell phone policies to developing a strategic plan.

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Hansen also has students give presentations monthly to the school board. That effort teaches the school board about student work. It prepares board members to answer community member questions about how their tax dollars are spent.

He has a similar approach to legislators. He gives tours and engages with the area’s two state senators and four state representatives. That way, when the fervor for reform rattles the Capitol’s marble columns, he hopes lawmakers pause.

“I want them to think of us,” Hansen said.

Hansen noted that legislators — whether thinking of local schools or not — left the district with an $800,000 blow to the budget by deciding not to fund operation cost increases this year.

On the topic of state policy, Hansen noted this year’s “school choice” law has major consequences for the district. That starts this year with a $50 million, first-ever subsidy for parents who use private and religious schools.

“I want our school to be the ‘choice,’ ” Hansen said. “Before ‘school choice,’ we were the only choice.”

He expects Lewiston’s high standards and good results — as one of only four districts in the state to exceed pre-Covid academic levels — to compete well in the “school choice” battle.

Hansen’s Idaho career started as a 1992 University of Idaho graduate and included coaching and teaching in Troy, Emmett and Moscow schools. He is working with the next superintendent — Tim Sperber, Lewiston’s Sacajawea Middle School principal — to help transition into the job.

Ferguson can be reached at dferguson@lmtribune.com.