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
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