Lockwood vs SD2 - Part 4

Gazette article here.

Hudetz told the board that losing Lockwood students from SD2 high schools would impact the academic environment at the schools — Lockwood kids are good students, he said. It also would effect the bottom line of the district.

SD2 would lose roughly 500 students and $2.1 million in funding.

Trustee Teresa Stroebe, who represents the Lockwood area on the board, spoke at length about letting the facts guide the MTSBA’s discussion in Helena and not sending Bouck and Hudetz there with any direction.

I have to disagree with Mr. Hudetz. Since the state funding formula punishes larger school districts via the decrement, academics do suffer. SD2 students are put in classrooms with larger student numbers. It is easier for a student falling behind to fall through the cracks. Larger high schools have higher dropout rates. Larger high schools have more intra-student issues that fester longer.

SD2 does want Lockwood students because they make the school district look better academically. Test scores at Senior would fall if these students left.

The bottom line of SD2 is not affected. If 500 students left, then the school district wouldn't need about 18 teachers. This would save the school district about $1.4 million. There are other savings that offset the $2.1 million in lost funding. The students that are left will be better funded and get more attention from district staff.

Reading articles about this in Missoula and Helena, I get the impression that parents want more say in their local school. This is why those who have children in K-8 districts, want them to expand to K-12 districts. I am a parent in a SD2 elementary district. I try to bring up concerns, but school district leadership only lectures me back. This is a monopoly that doesn't listen to customers.

Virgil

Lockwood vs SD2 - Part 3

This is part 3 of a discussion on the Montana School Board Association Resolution #9, which would direct the MTSBA to lobby the legislature to allow K-8 school districts to expand to K-12 school districts.

On May 19, there was a School Board Meeting and the board was directived to give Superintendent Bouck and CFO Hudetz some direction on this resolution. There is a meeting between affected school districts on May 28 and Delegates of the MTSBA will vote on this issue on June 8th I think.

The board discussion was video taped by Community 7 TV and can be found at this link. On the right, there is a "MTSB Request on K-12 Expansion" link that points the video play the discussion on this topic.

If the community of Lockwood does not think that SD2 can deliver education and services up to the community's expectations, then should Lockwood have an option to build their own high school (size of Laurel) and expand their school district from K-8 to K-12? The Lockwood school board did vote to support the resolution, so clearly they want the option.

The East Helena school district was the one that wrote the resolution. It was mentioned at the board meeting that East Helena parents are concerned about drugs in the Helena school district, so they want to get out to limit the impact of drugs on their children. This is an example of one of the negatives with large high school districts. The larger the student body, the higher likelihood for non-educational problems to creep into the schools. There are gang activity in Skyview high school in Billings, etc.The dropout rate associated with large high schools is also a negative. SD2's dropout rate is nearly 25%.

In the end, the 3 K-8 districts in Montana will support this resolution and the K-12 districts potentially affected will fight against the resolution. The SD2 vote to oppose the resolution was 8-1, with the Lockwood trustee, Teresa Stroebe, being the only one to vote against.

My view is that the state funding formula punishes large school districts be underfunding them. I would be looking for any way to make SD2 smaller, so they get more funding per student. The last 3 SD2 superintendents have complained bitterly about the decriment in the funding formula. One way to beat the system is to break SD2 into pieces. SD2 is not very responsive to parts of the Billings Community. Westend students are bused all over the place. Lockwood's educational concerns and the potential move from Senior to Skyview are not being listened to. Maybe it is time to break up the monopoly?

SD2 administrators also expressed concerns about their ability to provide cerntain electives and to keep the career center open. With Rocky and MSU-B in city limits, I think something can be worked out to minimize the impact of losing 550 students. The bottomline is that the rural school districts will not allow the school formula to be changed. They benefit greatly from the higher per student funding. Let's break up SD2 and give the surrounding K-6 and K-8 districts a piece of the pie. This would automatically bring more per student funding to the Billings area. Parents in the Billings area will finally have a choice in public schools.

Virgil Middendorf

Lockwood vs SD2 - Part Two

The finance staff of SD2 (led by Leo Hudetz) quickly analyzed the impact of MTSBA resolution #9 to the finances of SD2. Their analysis is here.

The estimate is that state funding to SD2 would be reduced by $2.2 million. This is about $4,000 per student lost. I think the average Billings high school student now brings in more than $4,000 each from the state, but I'll have to verify that. My first thought is that the loss of around 500 students to a new Lockwood high school will increase the per student funding for the remaining students in SD2. The state formula has a decrement that punishes large school districts. So making SD2 smaller would increase per student funding from the state. We wouldn't be punished as much.

The only downside is that the cost of buildings will stay same, so the per student cost of this will go up. Does the school district need the numbers to keep the Career Center going?

My impression of the possiblity of Lockwood going to K-12 would bring more overall state funding to both of the districts combined. Wouldn't that be a good thing? I think SD2 number crunchers should analyze this on a per student basis

Lockwood vs. SD2 - Part 1

School District 2 Trustees and Administration are concerned about MTSBA Resolution #9. This proposed resolution will be considered at the next meeting of the Montana School Board Association. If passed, then the association will try to get the legislature new year to make a change in the law.

Right now, K-8 school districts (like Lookwood) are not allowed (by law) to expand to K-12. So the law forces Lockwood students into SD2 High Schools. As described in the resolution...

WHEREAS, expansion from a K-8 to a K-12 district is expressly denied in these growing communities by the criteria set forth in MCA 20-6-326. This law prevents the citizens in communities that currently do not have high schools from exploring the possibility of adding a hometown high school that would fall under the local control of their community and school board

Reasoning for wanting a high school...

WHEREAS, the majority of Montanans including: parents, local school board trustees, elected local officials, and state legislators have established that hometown schools are a fundamental part of the Montana educational system;

Another words, Lockwood may prefer to have a local high school that their community will have more say as to what happens within that school. Right now the only have one vote out of nine on the SD2 school board and it is frequently hard to get high school issues priority.

There is also the issue that Lockwood K-8 is educating their students better than Billings K-8. Reading is about 2 percent better and Math is about 5 percent better based on the MontCas test given the Spring of 2013. When Lockwood students get in the SD2 high schools, most of their students waste their time repeating material they have already learned.

Certainly, the smaller the school district, the more easily school trustees are held accountable for their decisions. The Lockwood community really cannot hold SD2 trustees accountable. I'm sure the resolution makes sense to the Lockwood community. It gives them an option if SD2 does not meet their expectations. It can hold SD2 accountable for their high school decisions. If SD2 poorly educates Lockwood high school students, then Lockwood can excercise their option to build and run their own high school.

Part II will describe why SD2 is against this resolution.

Example of Students Not Getting Priority

Interesting story here from Oregon, where students and parents are concerned that students are not getting enough instruction time. This is a quote from a student...

“I feel I am unprepared compared to students in other states,” Page Hall, a student at Sunset High School, recently told the Beaverton school board. “I want to go off to college fully prepared.”

Bravo for the student for wanting to get her parent's moneys worth. I would hire her on the spot wanting to put in extra effort in her education. However, I think she is the exception to the rule. More from the story...

Oregon requires high schools to offer students 130 hours per class and at least 990 hours of instructional time per year, which is the equivalent of a 165-day school year for students in class six hours per day. The national norm, by comparison, is 1,080 hours or 180 days.

Yet Beaverton is taking a wait-and-see approach on the 130-hour rule. Wait and see if a parent formally files a Beaverton-specific complaint with the state. Wait and see if the state allows school districts more wiggle room on what counts as instructional time or its equivalent. 

I would be concerned if this was happening in my school distirct. This is impacting graduation rates in Beaverton in a bad way. Surely learning across the board is hurt. More...

Beaverton school leaders have spent much of the year focused on the fate of their $680 million bond measure. They've also been preoccupied by contract negotiations with the teachers union. Actual class time for actual students has felt like a lower priority, which is disconcerting. It shouldn't take a teenager to point that out.

This is exactly the same type of thing that leaders of SD2 are doing. They are speding enormous amounts of time on making decisions on the recently passed bond, plus getting ready to lobby the legislature. Students have become a lower priority in Billings.

Welcome

I found it hard to find detailed information about the public schools in the Billings, MT area. The soundbite journalism on our schools is not enough for me. So I am starting this blog to present the real story of the politics affecting our public schools.

Virgil