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Montana Public Education News Summaries
Jensen to Become Kalispell Superintendent
Kalispell Public Schools Assistant Superintendent Matt Jensen will lead the district as superintendent beginning next school year.
Trustee Jack Fallon noted that AA division school districts in Montana typically hire external superintendent candidates. Hiring Jensen, Fallon said, would make him the second consecutive internal superintendent hire for the Kalispell Public Schools after the district in 2020 hired Hill, who was formerly the Glacier High School principal.
The school board voted to hire Jensen on a three-year contract at a starting salary of $175,000. The average salary for a superintendent of a AA division school district in Montana is $180,564.
Instructional coaches may be removed from schools
Instructional coaches are sprinkled throughout East Helena and Helena public schools giving teachers extra help, but the districts run the risk of losing these positions at the end of September when a state grant expires.
There are 15 instructional coaches throughout the Helena district, one pre-k grant funded, three elementary grant funded, one middle school grant funded, two high school grant funded, one K-5 math coach elementary and secondary school emergency relief funded and seven full-time Title 1 and 2 funded.
The position is funded through a competitive state Office of Public Instruction grant, the Montana Comprehensive Literacy State Development Program known as the “literacy grant,” which was awarded in 2019 and runs out at the end of September.
The Helena district is reliant on the levies passing in May, Davidson said, otherwise the “reality” is the district will lose positions and programs.
If instructional coaches are removed from the districts, Davidson said the hole left will be huge because of the assistance coaches offer to teachers.
If the district loses people it loses the ability to have individualized teaching instruction, according to Davidson.
Helena IR: Instructional coaches may be removed from schools
Helena music teacher's assault case is dismissed
A Helena teacher's case was dismissed Monday by Lewis and Clark County District Court Judge Kathy Seeley after she said insufficient evidence was provided to prove he committed assault on a minor.
Carson Christman Yahvah, a former Four Georgians Elementary music teacher, was found not guilty during his bench trial with Seeley.
This was Yahvah's second court case regarding assault charges.
On Nov. 8, 2023, he was found not guilty on two charges of assaulting a third grade student at Four Georgians Elementary School.
Yahvah was suspended at the time for his actions. Helena Public Schools officials said in November Yahvah was on leave without pay “pending resolution of all legal matters.”
Montana schools submit for reimbursement for lead testing in school drinking water
In an effort to guarantee safe drinking water to students throughout Montana, the Office of Public Instruction recently allocated new funds to cover the costs of testing water for lead.
According to the Montana Department of Environmental Quality, 71 percent of schools that have already been tested exceeded the amount of lead that can safely be in the water.
Schools with unsafe lead levels will be refunded for the costs of upgrading their water systems.
The reimbursement program is first come first serve with the maximum amount of funding for each school capped at $50,000, but that amount may be adjusted in the future based on need.
Mary Sheehy Moe: HB 393 — A mad, mad, mad, mad bill
When President Gerald Ford signed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 1975, he didn’t conceal his reservations: “Unfortunately, this bill promises more than the federal government can deliver.”
The feds promised to cover up to 40% of the costs of providing free, appropriate public education to every child with a disability. Their lips to God’s ears. In 1990, the feds assumed 11.49% of Montana’s IDEA costs. The state shouldered the lion’s share, (81.66%), leaving local districts with the remaining 7.09%.
Over time, the lion became a lamb. By 2022, our state’s share of total special education funding had shrunk to 26.55%. The feds ponied up 21.23%. That left local districts with a whopping 52.22% of the cost. And those costs had more than quadrupled, increasing from $40.9 million in 1990 to $168.4 million by 2022.
You wonder why your school board comes back year after year with mill levy requests? Part of the reason is that state and federal laws require public schools to meet widely varying and sometimes wildly expensive special education needs, costs notwithstanding. To meet their legal (and moral) obligation to these students without levy requests, local schools must raid the general fund, designed to meet the needs of all students.
When voters say NO to a mill levy request (and with the local impacts of the last legislative session, such requests have a snowball’s chance in hell), school districts have no choice but to cut classes that aren’t required and overcrowd classes that are. Who loses? Every. Single. Kid.
Given this history, last session’s HB 393, establishing “special education savings accounts” that divert state and local funds to parents who decline publicly provided special education for their child, is truly unconscionable.
Missoulian: Mary Sheehy Moe: HB 393 — A mad, mad, mad, mad bill
Friends of Neighborhood Schools: Keep Helena’s neighborhood schools open
The district faces an operational shortfall of millions of dollars that must be brought into balance.
The school board’s first steps to address the budget shortfall have been to appoint committees and hire contractors to recommend cuts, propose long-term building plans, and find sources of untapped revenue. The board has not yet acted on any recommendations, but one idea that has emerged is to close the doors on two of Helena’s neighborhood schools: Hawthorne and Broadwater.
As it turns out, closing these schools doesn’t save much money. Most of an elementary school’s budget is in salaries and instructional-related overhead. Those costs simply get shifted to the schools that take in the displaced students.
We’re calling on the school board to address the budget deficit without closing Helena’s neighborhood schools. The costs are far too high, and the savings negligible, to justify the catastrophic disruptions closures would cause. The school board needs to find other, less destructive alternatives to addressing the budget shortfall.
Moreover, we’re calling on the school board to be transparent in this process. Several meetings where school closures were first discussed were closed to the public. This error needs to be corrected with the process being well communicated and open to public involvement.
Friends of Neighborhood Schools, a group formed by Helena parents to educate the public about the negative impacts of school closures.
Helena IR: Friends of Neighborhood Schools: Keep Helena’s neighborhood schools open
Bozeman schools receive 88 student applications through open enrollment
Under a new state law that allows students to attend any school in the state for free, 88 out-of-district students have applied to enroll in Bozeman Public Schools next year.
Out of the total applications, 34 students are new to Bozeman schools, Superintendent Casey Bertram said.
The other 54 students have already attended school in Bozeman previously by paying tuition, he said. Those students had to have special circumstances, like having a parent who is a staff member in the district or being a high school senior who moved away but wanted to finish their final year of school in Bozeman, according to district policy.
Those families will no longer be charged tuition next year, Bertram said. HB 203 shifts some of the financial responsibility away from the host school by requiring the student’s resident district to pay tuition — funded by property taxes — to the other district.
Bozeman Chronicle: Bozeman schools receive 88 student applications through open enrollment
OPI employees send complaint about workplace policy changes
Members of the Montana Federation of Public Employees, the union representing over 12,500 education professionals, issued a formal complaint to the Office of Public Instruction regarding recent reductions in office space and mandated remote work for most employees.
Specifically, the letter references decisions by the education agency to consolidate office space on the premise that it cuts costs and enhances flexibility. In the letter sent to OPI, MFPE claims it was not informed of the decision nor was it offered the opportunity to provide feedback.
“Vacating the private lease is a responsible use of precious taxpayer dollars that allow more resources to flow to our Montana students and schools,” Arntzen said in a statement in 2022. “My goal is to create a smaller and smarter government by allowing our employees to live in the communities they serve.”
Arntzen has made reducing spending a central point of her administration. Her critics say such measures, many of them dubious, only serve to hurt Montana educators and students.
“Because this property and this lease remain in the state inventory, there is no immediate cost savings to the state by the action being taken by the superintendent,” Rep. David Bedey, R-Hamilton.
Ravalli Republic: OPI employees send complaint about workplace policy changes
Charter school looks to provide opportunity for non-English speaking students in Billings
Billings Public Schools will add three new charter schools at the beginning of the 2024-25 school year, including one that aims to provide better opportunities for the district's non-English speaking students.
The charter, which will be called the Multilingual Academy, is an attempt to reach a population that has grown substantially in the past five years. It will also serve at least 50 refugee students, who are set to arrive in March.
Those refugee students will come from Afghanistan, Iraq, Honduras and Venezuela and will be the first wave of refugees brought to Billings after the city was approved by the state to become Montana's second resettlement city, following Missoula.
“We went from 25 students five or six years ago to now being close to 400,” Olszewski said. “So we needed to do something different.”
Olszewski said that increase is partly from families that would come through the area to work on farms during the harvest, but also because Billings has multiple job opportunities and relatively inexpensive housing.
As of now, the Multilingual Academy will be offered to middle school and high school-aged students. It will be available to both migrant students currently in the district and any refugee students moving in.
Olszewski said the plan was to offer one class session in the morning and one in the afternoon to help provide enough space. The students will attend their regular school during the other parts of their day.
KTVQ: Charter school looks to provide opportunity for non-English speaking students in Billings
Helena parent group aims to inform others on district projects
A group of parents from around the Helena Public Schools district have formed a nonprofit organization in light of statements made in early November 2023 by board and SMA Architecture and Design representatives at Hawthorne Elementary School that caused members to fear neighborhood schools may close.
Warhank said during a Jan. 9 board meeting that the representatives from SMA said the firm is not considering student outcome in terms of the master plan.
Members said they want to work with the board and the district to come up with solutions within the district even though some parents within the group believe transparency is lacking from the district.
The facilities master planning process was first referenced in 2022, according to district officials.
Officials said the plan has also been talked about in countless meetings since 2022 that were posted online with the agendas made public on the district's website.
King said they believe the district relying on levies and community voters to keep the district operational is not a sustainable option. They added that this comes back to the discussion of the school funding formula on the state level and believes it needs to be reworked to meet the needs of school districts in Montana.
Helena IR: Helena parent group aims to inform others on district projects
news/education.txt · Last modified: 2024/01/14 20:14 by lmuszkie