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.