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Helena teacher's union votes down a 1% salary increase
The Helena Education Association has voted down the contract proposal from Helena Public Schools.
In December, 416 members of the association voted the contract down out of the 462 total members.
“We are going to go back to a consensus negotiations plan where we will have a facilitator,” [Superintendent Rex Weltz] said.
“There were many different factors besides the 1% salary increase that caused teachers to not vote for the contract,” HEA president Jane Shawn said.
Helena IR: Helena teacher's union votes down a 1% salary increase
State board approves GFPS charter school
The Montana Board of Education approved 19 charter school applications, including the CORE School from Great Falls Public Schools, on Jan. 19.
Jane Hamman, board member, led the board’s charter school subcommittee and said during the meeting that the contracts would include baseline performance measures and the state would determine what funding would be available to each charter school.
Morningside Elementary School was selected in November as the location for the new CORE School.
GFPS teachers who aren’t selected for the CORE School will be able to move to another school under the existing process in their collective bargaining agreement, according to district administrators.
In early 2024, the district will hold informational sessions for families who live outside of the Morningside attendance area who are considering enrollment in the CORE School for the upcoming academic year.
Current students at the selected school will have the option to stay, but for those that want to leave, they could be moved to a nearby school or go through the district’s existing permissive transfer process.
The classrooms will be filled to state capacity and will use a lottery system to fill any available elementary student slots at the lab school, district officials said.
Even if the district wasn’t approved as a public charter school, district staff said they’d move forward with their plan to turn one existing elementary school to turn into CORE School in an effort to address teacher recruitment and retention.
CORE School will essentially be a learning laboratory and will be staffed by teachers with masters degrees who go through a separate selection process and will also be hired as adjunct staff for the University of Montana-Western’s education program.
The student teachers from university programs will be hired by the district as paraeducators or teacher aides, which have also been in short supply, while they’re completing their degree program in an immersive educational setting.
Mainwaring said there’s been some misconceptions about what a public charter school is. Under the new state law allowing the creation of public charter schools, public money stays with public schools with the advisory committee and school board retaining oversight.
If approved as a public charter school, it will get slightly more from the state than the standard base funding that’s determined by enrollment, which could free up some general fund dollars for other district needs, Mainwaring said.
The public charter schools also have some flexibility to accept private funding, which could offset some costs or allow for some enhancements, GFPS officials said.
Montana prepares to launch new education savings accounts
Montana’s Office of Public Instruction is preparing this winter for the implementation of a new program that will make public education funds directly available to the families of students with special needs.
With the Legislature’s passage last year of House Bill 393, Montana is set to become one of 13 states where parents can apply for government reimbursement for certain educational services obtained outside the public school system. The restrictions placed on such reimbursement programs — known as “education savings accounts” — vary from state to state. Programs in Arizona and Florida are nearly universal, while Montana’s education savings accounts can only be used for services related to special education.
“I want to help in any way possible to make it easier for the parents of special needs children to get their kids the education that they need,” Walter said, “because it doesn’t always fit in the same box and it doesn’t always fit in the public setting.”
“My interest is to make sure that this isn’t just a transfer of public dollars into private schools,” Curtiss said of her role on the committee, adding that she also intends to ensure that Individualized Education Plans — federally mandated documents developed for each student with special needs in the U.S. — serve as a primary guide in HB 393’s implementation.
Montana Free Press: Montana prepares to launch new education savings accounts
Board of Public Education approves first wave of Montana charter schools
Montana’s Board of Public Education unanimously approved applications for 19 new charter schools across the state Friday, giving the 11 public school districts that submitted them the green light to proceed with standing up the new institutions.
The new charters represent Montana’s first wave of schools made possible by House Bill 549, which was passed by the Legislature last year and allows existing public school boards to set up and manage charter schools with narrowly tailored educational goals. The approved charters will see new schools established in Billings, Great Falls, Helena, Kalispell, Missoula, Bozeman, Frenchtown, East Helena, Hamilton, Boulder and Corvallis.
State board members have reviewed a total of 26 charter proposals submitted under the new public district charter school law in recent months. One proposal was rejected early in the process as the applicants had not consulted their local school board, and another was withdrawn by the applicants Friday just prior to the board’s action. The board denied five other proposals in a separate vote Friday.
Thursday’s discussion also revealed a number of higher-level dilemmas board members have faced in their first bid at implementing district-run charters. One such pain point involved legal questions about the ability of charters to offer online enrollment and instruction for students outside their district’s boundaries. Hamman noted Montana law currently contains several contradictory provisions related to out-of-district enrollment that could raise legal issues for charters built around widespread online instruction.
Board members also wrestled with the more existential question of what one of HB 549’s primary charges — that charters offer “innovative” instruction — actually means, with Hamman quipping that one proposal had her turning to “the dictionary and thesaurus” to better define the term. The board had rated several proposals expanding pre-existing programs in certain districts as lower in terms of their innovative appeal, but rated similar charter applications in districts where such programs hadn’t been tried yet as higher. Despite those ratings, board member Anne Keith pointed out some applications built around pre-existing district programs had fallen higher on the board’s ranking list than others proposing the same model of instruction.
The board expressed particular concern over a charter proposal submitted by the Park City Schools, which involved administering online instruction with the aid of a for-profit vendor, Pearson Online and Blended Learning. That detail — coupled with the proposal’s projected long-term enrollment of more than 1,000 students statewide — prompted several board members to question the charter’s potential impacts on enrollment in other districts throughout Montana.
Members also got a look at the latest totals of teachers licensed by OPI for the 2023-24 school year. Crystal Andrews, the agency’s director of accreditation and licensure, told the board the number of new educator licenses issued this academic year was 246 higher than in the 2022-23 school year — a promising development in a state contending with ongoing teacher recruitment and retention challenges.
Montana Free Press: Board of Public Education approves first wave of Montana charter schools
Billings Schools program views wrongdoing as a 'learning opportunity'
As county commissioners hatch plans for a multimillion-dollar jail expansion, the Billings Public School system is taking a different approach to addressing youth violence and crime by training school staff to teach conflict resolution skills.
In the new Billings schools program, wrongdoing and conflict are viewed as learning opportunities. Misbehavior is reframed as harming people and relationships, rather than breaking school rules.
The grant-funded restorative practices training for 30 elementary school and 30 middle school staff, including teachers, counselors, and principals, which was conducted by a Colorado-based non-profit called Restorative Justice Education.
“It’s not the removal of consequences, but the addition of strategies,” Burkhardt said.
The foundation of the program is building community in schools, through a daily community building circle that gives students the opportunity to connect with one another.
Billings Gazette: Billings Schools program views wrongdoing as a 'learning opportunity'
news.txt · Last modified: 2024/01/04 05:22 by lmuszkie