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Helena school board postpones levy vote
Earlier Tuesday, during the school district’s budget committee meeting, superintendent Rex Weltz said that there would be five possible levies put up for election in May.
These levies would revolve around safety and security as well as technology levies supplying the district with more security measures within schools and updating the technology within schools that students and staff use.
An operational levy could also be put on the ballot for the elementary district, but not the high school district.
This was changed later during the full board meeting when the district representative from the business services and payroll department Janelle Mickelson noticed that the district could present an operational levy for the high school district after the district knows if its charter school applications are approved.
The board plans to revisit the levies in February, since the district should know if the applications are approved or denied in mid to late January.
Helena schools consider array of cuts, including closures, to offset budget shortfall
Helena Public Schools will consider an array of options, including the closing of schools, to help cope with the maintenance backlog throughout the district, the schools’ superintendent said.
Because the district cannot afford to update every building’s needs at the same time, it hired SMA Architecture and Design to help develop a plan that will frame the options the district can take to approach the budget shortfall, including the possible closure of some buildings.
Friends of Neighborhood Schools, a recently formed nonprofit group of Helena elementary school parents, said in a press release this week that closing schools would be a short-sighted approach. It says the draft of the plan emphasizes closing neighborhood schools, namely Hawthorne and Broadwater elementary schools.
Last year, voters passed building reserve levies, approving $1.75 million per year for K-8 districts and $750,000 per year for the high school buildings. The levies will expire in 2033, according to an email from Ogden.
The district has already taken another avenue to save funds and add revenue. School trustees earlier this month approved leasing the building that previously housed the Ray Bjork Learning Center, which was closed last March, to St. Peters Health for the next 20 years. The lease will generate around $225,000 annually for the district, according to Weltz. St. Peters plans to renovate the space into a daycare for the hospital.
GFPS approves pay increase for paraeducators
At the beginning of this school year, the district’s special education department struggled to attract and retain paraprofessionals.
But the salary increase means a reduction in the total possible number of paraeducators the district can hire and the district will have to determine the best way to work with available resources, Diekhans said.
Of the filled positions, 122 are funded through federal programs, four instructional paraprofessionals are funded by the district’s tax revenues, and 14 elementary student advocate paraprofessionals are funded through ESSER funds, which are education COVID relief funds.
The district has one elementary student advocate and eight paraprofessionals on the federal funding side of the budget, according to the district.
The board voted to approve a 75 cent per hour wage increase for paraprofessionals for the 93 days from Jan. 22 through June 30.
That increase is an estimated cost to the district of $79,758.
‘Imperfect progress’: City, county embrace JEDI challenges
When Missoula County and the city of Missoula adopted Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion bylaws in December, the decision came after much mental wrangling on the part of many elected officials.
The problem JEDI seeks to address, according to the city’s JEDI Specialist Alex Lawson, is underrepresentation of traditionally marginalized identities in Missoula’s civic life. Lawson cited sobering statistics, like Missoula County Public Schools data that demonstrates 10% of enrolled students are Native, yet that group makes up 27% of those who do not graduate.
People who are Native account for less than 2% of Missoula’s overall population, Lawson went on, but they make up 14% of the local incarcerated population. Additionally, 25% of the local unhoused population is Native, Lawson said.
Missoulian: ‘Imperfect progress’: City, county embrace JEDI challenges
news.txt · Last modified: 2024/01/04 05:22 by lmuszkie