Other business/government entities besides MCPS are run abominably as well

Another business or part of a business that is abominably run is the Missoulian circulation department. The department pays the contractors who deliver the newspapers a very low wage. Additionally, the department pays inconsistently. For instance, a new carrier could actually be paid MORE than a long time carrier that has done a good job for the newspaper. I've seen long time carriers who have done excellent work be treated poorly. The long-time carriers feel that, although they like the work of delivering papers, they could not put up with the poor treatment of the circulation department of the Missoulian newspaper and have quit. After a long-time carrier quits the train of carriers begins. Usually, the customer receives poor delivery as the new carrier does a horrible job or does not put up with the abuse the circulation department dishes out either due to low pay or mean and unhelpful district managers(who also have a high turnover). Problem: District Managers who have hung on to their job despite causing hundreds of carriers to quit.

School Board Shenanigans - Missoula Independent article on Trustee Lemm doing work for superintendent Clark

School Board Shenanigans:  Kissing up to the boss



Click on the link to read about a MCPS Trustee doing construction work for the superintendent Jim Clark.



The above was discovered when another MCPS Trustee noticed Drake drawing on a piece of paper. Teresa, the Trustee, wondered what he was drawing and asked Drake. Drake then said that he was drawing the plans for a construction project for superintendent Clark. This incident was then submitted for review to the County Attorney's office.



Drake Lemm was allowed to skate with a slap on the hand by the County Attorney.

September 11, 2017 - Comment posted to KGVO's facebooks page - Re - closed schools in Missoula

Read a comment made on the KGVO Talk Back program on September 11, 2017 regarding how decisions made by Missoula County Public Schools effect an entire community. the comment focuses on closed schools - this blogs most despised concept.

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If one is interested in reading this comment it appears you will need to copy and paste the data above.      

September 2017 KGVO News article on the state funding problems for schools - readers need to copy and paste to read article

Click the link below to read an article found on the KGVO News web page regarding state school funding. (hope the web connection works!😁


http://newstalkkgvo.com/governor-should-accept-blame-for-school-budget-cuts-and-lack-of-transparency-says-state-superintendent/


Note: It appears that the link does not automatically open. If you are interested in reading the article please copy the link and paste it into the search area on your computer. This is until I learn how to get links to automatically open!

missoulaschoolwatchdog didn't realize the extent that the bond work would demolish our Missoula school history

So much sadness. So much despair. 
This may be an exaggeration for some. Even for those who grew up in Missoula.

But not to many Missoulians or even to those who care and value history and historical school buildings and other historical buildings such as the Missoula Mercantile.

The Missoula Mercantile was certainly a landmark - built in the 1880's by the McCloud family (not sure of the exact history). The demolition of the "Merc" was such a tragedy!

Since the November 2015 school bond passed we have seen the loss of such treasures as Franklin School. It was built in the early 1900's, being one of Missoula's first schools. Additions to Franklin were added throughout the years so that the entire Franklin School building was really not that old. In fact, and some people may be angered by this  - the newest addition was constructed less than a decade ago and cost the taxpayers a half million dollars. This addition was demolished - the demolition itself costing thousands of dollars to be sure(not certain on the costs of the entire demolition or the costs of the demolition to the approximately 2009 addition).

Then the entire inside of Lowell School was gutted. When on a tour we saw that the gym had been left intact(as was Franklin's), however, everything, and I mean everything else had been gutted. I did see a token bell as a decoration though.

So that the demolition of Willard really has hit me hard. I have a total feeling of despair - a huge weight of sadness that the MCPS school district chose this course of action. Such a beautiful building with so many wonderful features that cannot be duplicated now.

These decisions will have negative repercussions throughout our city for generations.

So sad!
So unnecessary!
Drain that MCPS Swamp! Drain that swamp! Drain that swamp! (A take off of a rally during the presidential election.)

September 1, 2017 - Many of Missoula's school children used to walk home for lunch!

In the September, 1st, 2017 edition of the Missoulian in the obituary section was the death notice of a long-time Missoula resident/mother/grandmother.

Her name is Alice "Jean" Cleaves. 

As I read about her life I noticed that the following sentences, "While caring for their children she enjoyed reading, needlework, gardening, and volunteering for school activities. She was one of those moms who always had a good meal waiting when the kids came home for lunch."

Prior to around 1981 most of Missoula's school children attended a nearby neighborhood school and were able to walk/walk quickly, or run (done all of these!) home for lunch. Children used to be able for the most part to walk or bike to and from school. And many if not most were able to go home for lunch! 

Some of my good school memories are of the lunch boxes I used to take to a Missoula school while growing up here in the '60's and 70's. Precious. I loved that red plaid lunch box, especially.

August 24 - continued Report on Lowell School open house - the exterior

It would be better to divide the report on the Lowell School open house on August 24 in two parts - the exterior and the interior, that is the inside and the outside. This would enable the posts to be shorter - the plan is to make the posts shorter so as to make the blog more user friendly.

This post will be about the new exterior of Lowell School.

The lawn in front of the school has been replaced with cement and landscaping. All older trees have been removed. Second, the shell of the school has, fortunately, been left intact - it is so beautiful so I was glad about that. The back of the building was connected to a new addition on the west side. So-that part of the historical building has been eliminated.

The Phillips Street entrance is where the school officials wanted people to enter. So we did not go into the main entrance. At first glance, it appears that the structure of the inside of the front entrance as seen from the outside was not changed totally, however the beautiful woodwork was either painted over or had been removed.

Debra Niwa - The International Baccalaureate Unraveled - Disc 2

August 24 - Report on our visit to the Lowell School open house mentioned in the previous post

I thought I'd share some initial impressions of my visit, with another person in tow, to the Lowell School open house to see the changes made to the school over the last year or two.

There is a lot to cover when discussing the changes to the inside of the building.  I did go into Lowell before the demolition and took pictures about which I'm glad so that I can go back to get a better contrast since I've forgotten a lot since then.

I will just write about what the other person that went with me thought - In short, he thought that there was a lot of wasted space with hallways, several big open areas, and very high ceilings. There did not seem to be an organized feeling to the layout of the rooms, hallways, and open areas. In fact, it was difficult to tell where one had gone before when walking through the building.

My thoughts - I admit, as people may guess, that I'm a softy for older historical buildings. New architecture needs to be saved for new buildings, I think. So-- I'm quite disappointed that the history of Lowell has, I hate to inform people that care about this,  essentially been whitewashed with a few exceptions, two being the outer façade as mentioned above, and the gym.

Thank goodness that the gym was not altered! When I say the history has been whitewashed, I actually mean whitewashed (or maybe ecru-washed would be the word). All wood has been painted. Most walls are now ecru or some shade of beige. So now we have  somewhat of a sterile atmosphere. There are a few colored walls(I did really like the colors of these walls). 

In my first post today, I mentioned that the principal told me a couple of years ago that the changes will be a nice mixture of old and new. Not so in my opinion. The inside of Lowell is almost all new, with the exception of the old school bell which was on display and a few old shelves.

These are our first impressions of the renovations/demolition of Lowell School as seen in the open house on Thursday, August 24, 2017. Pictures to come. Stay tuned. 

Oh, one more thing. A Missoulian reporter, who was very nice, her name was Jamye (perhaps wrong spelling), was looking for people to interview that did not have children. So here we were. (Both of our children are grown.) So --- I may be quoted in the Missoulian, my comments most likely being the same as what is in this post. Thanks for reading Missoula school watchdog!

August 24,2017 Lowell & Franklin Schools have an open house today from 4:00 - 6:00

I read in the Missoulian (someone else showed me this or I may have missed it) an article about the open house for two schools that were radically changed due to the passage of a bond in 2015.

The two schools were Franklin and Lowell. 

Lowell is a A.J. Gibson designed school. Gibson was a famous Missoula and regional architect in the early 1900's. This school was gutted and an addition on the playground was added which is connected to the back.

Franklin School was demolished, unfortunately, in the opinion of missoulaschoolwatchdog. 

The bond could be named "destroy Missoula's school history" bond.

The entire school building of Franklin, which included a pretty much brand new addition built in 2009 or so costing half a million dollars(!) was demolished. Oh, they kept the gym, according to someone I talked to because it would have been too expensive to replace - how nice MCPS left one small portion of the Franklin School history.

To get back to the open house which is from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. tonight. Some thoughts - the school district did not let the wider Missoula population know about this open house. It appears the district let families in the Lowell area know earlier. And isn't 4:00 a little early for every day workers?  Why not have it at 7:00 to 9:00?


Another point. The  paper states: "These open houses are sign not just as back-to-school nights(again this is not at night-msw) for those families and students, but for the community to be welcomed and experience what they paid for," Missoula County Public Schools Communication Director Hatton Littman said."

My take from the above statement: If they really wanted to welcome the community why did the district give little notice for this event? And why is it being held from 4:00 to 6:00. All of Missoula property owners paid for this bond - why not really invite the entire city at an appropriate time and with ample notice?

Missoulaschoolswatchdog smells a rat here. Additionally, will the changes to Lowell be a perfect combination of the new and the old as the principal of Lowell said to me before the project? Or will too much of the school have been destroyed forever? msw will let you know what I think after the visit tonight. 

8-22-17 edition of Montana Morning - 4,000 kids are being bused to schools on 103 bus routes

This morning I was listening to the end of Montana Morning, a news show on KGVO, and heard some news tidbits on busing our children to school.
Missoula County Public Schools is busing 4,000 kids to school each morning! And this is out of an enrollment of about double that number (Sorry, I don't have the enrollment numbers in front of me at this time).

So -- we still have 5 schools that could be reopened. Which MCPS will stubbornly and I believe corruptly, will not open. The schools are: Emma Dickinson, Prescott, Mt. Jumbo, Whittier, and Jefferson.

One of these schools, Prescott, is being used by a private school - being leased to Missoula International School. So -- MCPS sends two to three hundred students to Washington Middle School out of the Rattlesnake Valley but allows a private school to use our much needed public school. Like I said, CORRUPT!

Again, busing 4,000 kids per day to school in Missoula, Montana. Unconscionable.

Missoula School Watchdog will try to get the enrollment numbers for this post at some point soon.

Thank you for reading Missoula School Watchdog!

Rattlesnake 6-8th graders shut out from a neighborhood school by Missoula County Public Schools officials

Even though there are two schools owned by Missoula County Public Schools in the Rattlesnake Valley in Missoula, Montana, the students in the 6th, 7th, and 8th grades are being shut out of these schools. (MCPS sold the third Rattlesnake School, the beautiful Lincoln School for the paltry sum of $86,000. in an earlier decade.)

In 2004, the MCPS Board of Trustees closed Rattlesnake Middle School, the school which housed students in the above mentioned grades. This process was fraught with corruption and was only a 48 day process from the date of the announcement to the date of the closure vote. Prescott School, the second school in the Rattlesnake and a school in East Missoula was also closed in the same process.

What a tragedy and a huge disruption for students, faculty, and the community, not only in the Rattlesnake Valley but throughout the entire community of Missoula.

It has now been 13 years since the closures and this tragedy has not been mitigated so that all Rattlesnake children can attend a neighborhood school. The 6th thorough 8th grade students are still being bused to Washington Middle School as they were in 2004.

Millions of dollars has been spent on renovations to Missoula County Public Schools in the adjustment to the MCPS Board decision in 2004.

The tragedy of 2004 continues to this day. The Missoula County Public Schools Board of Trustees and the superintendents since then have not lifted a finger to fix this disruptive, expensive, and corrupt decision.

Edited on July 12, 1017

Current MCPS Superintendent Mark Thane tells KGVO listeners Lowell School was not designed by architect A.J. Gibson - which it was!

On, Thursday, Missoula County Public Schools Superintendent Mark Thane, a "hometown boy", appeared on KGVO's radio talk show, Talk Back, for a half hour with host Peter Christian.

Superintendent Thane was discussing the many MCPS bond construction projects (which in msw's view were not needed - not all of them anyway).

One of the schools Thane mentioned was Lowell School, one of Missoula's most historic schools located on the northwest side of Missoula built in 1909. This school, is now in the process of being gutted and remodeled.

 Mark Thane told listeners that Lowell School was not an A.J. Gibson building. This statement was not prompted by any discussion of the historical value of the school.

An addition to Lowell being gutted and the addition being removed there is more work going on to this property. The modular on the playground, built in about 2012, was moved and a huge addition is being built in that location.




The idea that it was old and in poor condition was discussed. The host, Peter Christian, did, of course, agree with Thane that the school was indeed so old (even stating that white snowflake-like stuff was falling from the ceiling when on an earlier tour with Thane) that it had to be gutted. I had previously toured Lowell School and did not see falling "snow" from the ceiling, but was impressed with this beautiful and historic school in need of basic maintenance (and maybe a little more TLC than it had been given in past years. Another citizen mentioned in a previous Talk Back show voiced the concern that the school was in need of a good old-fashioned paint job.

I have always understood that Lowell School was designed by A.J. Gibson. A university professor wrote a book entirely on the famous local architect, and I remembered that Lowell School was featured as one of Gibson's designs in the book.

 Additionally, I had previously gone to the Lowell School website where the librarian posts historical facts about the school. The information on this site states that indeed Lowell School is a Gibson design. The addition, next to Lowell School, was built in the 1960's and was designed by "Kirk" Kirkemo's (Gibson's colleague)son. So this addition is not a Gibson design. It was obvious in this comment that Thane was talking about the main building when referencing the architect.

To say that Lowell School is not a A.J. Gibson design, as Mark Thane told KGVO radio listeners, is patently false!


However, is was surprising to me that superintendent Mark Thane would go on a radio show and say something that was not true is troubling, to say the least.

Because the superintendent was not honest on this topic one has to ask where else has he not been honest and how many times has he misled the public?

I know of other circumstances, actually, where Thane stated misleading to false information. I'm (msw) is really wondering just at what lengths he will go to subterfuge.

Editing note: A Missoulian article featuring Lowell School and noting that it was an A.J. Gibson building appeared when I used Google for this article, I will attempt to link that article to this post at a later date. The article was about Lowell being one of a hundred Missoula icons.

written by Missoulaschoolwatchdog for the missoulaschoolwatchdog.blogspot.com website

A Missoula baby boomer flashback - Where I was when JFK was shot - November 22, 1963

It's been decades ago since that fateful day in America's history, the day, November 22, 1963, when President John F. Kennedy was shot. 

This tragic event happened in the middle of the day. Missoula's school children have varying stories on their experience of what happened to them. 

Here is mine. I was in third grade in 1963. As we lived in the married student housing we attended Lewis and Clark School. Back then, the married student housing was actually long rectangular buildings called "the strips" with names of counties for the streets, such as Gallatin or Fergus, etc.

My third grade teacher going through grade school in Missoula was Mrs. Ulrigg. She was a nice teacher, a little plumb with her dark hair braided and pulled up.

Our class was out on the playground, either for the lunch break or for recess. I was playing near the back door, perhaps jump roping, a favorite activity.

A tall woman, at least I remember her being tall, opened the back door and yelled out, "The president has been shot, the president has been shot."  Children, back then and perhaps now, knew who there president is, so we knew that it was President Kennedy that was shot. 

We all came in and sat at our desks and talked about the tragic news. I've heard from some Missoula baby boomers that some classes came in and watched the news on a TV set up in their rooms.

Note: I may have written about this topic in a past post - if so - I don't think it will hurt to repeat a memory of this important historical time in our nation's history. This event did make quite an impression on me and most of Missoula's children as well as the rest of the nation.

Possible bribery of former Missoula County Public Schools Naomi Kimbell may have been behind the 2004 school closures and subsequent lease of Prescott School to Missoula International School

Former MCPS School 

Trustee - Naomi Kimbell

The title of this post is self explanatory. Go to www.prescottschoolmissoula.blogspot.com and search the word "Naomi Kimbell" to

read about the shenanigans by MCPS in the 2004 school closures issue.

Random Acts of Bad Behavior and corruption by Missoula County Publc Schools officials - this time by former Trustee Nancy Pickhardt

At times when I'm perusing the internet (which can be quite frustrating at times - many times actually) I come across articles (mostly Missoulian) that report on negative actions taken by Missoula County Public Schools officials.

Today a Missoulian article showed up in a search about another MCPS issue. So - I thought I would provide a link to the article on this blog, Missoula school watchdog, which does seem appropriate as shedding light on MCPS is the reason for it's existence. 

Here is the Missoulian link to the Nancy Pickhardt fiasco = the inappropriate message left by former MCPS Trustee on a citizen's message machine The citizen had recently been critical of the superintendent's raise (along with many others).

http://missoulian.com/news/local/missoula-school-trustee-pickhardt-leaves-profane-message-for-critic-of/article_8b60a6d2-9f7e-11df-828e-001cc4c002e0.html

Note: msw (missoulaschoolwatchdog will fix link soon, however, feel free to google the article using using the words Nancy Pickhardt and phone message.

I'll try again -

http://missoulian.com/news/local/missoula-school-trustee-pickhardt-leaves-profane-message-for-critic-of/article_8b60a6d2-9f7e-11df-828e-001cc4c002e0.html

Just who are the culprits in the Missoula County Public Schools system who have made irresponsible decisions?

In 2004, in just a 48 day period, 3 of our precious neighborhood schools were closed. I guess one could say my life has been radically changed since that day in March.
My third son was to attend Rattlesnake Middle School that fall. Instead, he and his peers on the entire north side of Missoula were bused to Washington Middle School, quite far from their neighborhoods. This practice continues to this day.
Since so many Missoulians have not experienced what I did (and my son and the community of Missoula) I have decided to post the names of the people who have not been held accountable for their actions in 2004 and other years.

Here are some names- Rosemary Harrison




MCPS Board chairwoman - Rosemary Harrison

 









Jenda Cummings (later Jenda Hemphill)
Toni Rehbein

Scott Bixler


Long time MCPS Trustee - Scot Bixler

Joe Toth
Superintendent Clark

and high school trustees
Jim Sadler
Drake Lemm
Debbie Dupree
Diane Beck
(high school trustees did not vote but weighted in on the side of closures)

*Pictures will be added as time permits -

missoula school watchdog 2: Fellow long-time Missoulian - "We used to have mor...

missoula school watchdog 2: Fellow long-time Missoulian - "We used to have mor...: Today I was talking with a long-time Missoula citizen – a fellow baby boomer. As I have mentioned in some of my posts I attended  Missoula ...

Fellow long-time Missoulian - "We used to have more neighborhood schools"

Today I was talking with a long-time Missoula citizen – a fellow baby boomer. As I have mentioned in some of my posts I attended  Missoula schools since 1^st grade (Missoula
did not have kindergarten back then).

 For some reason topic of schools came up. This fellow
Missoulian attended Missoula Catholic Schools. He did, however, notice the local neighborhood schools and had friends in these schools. Fast forward to today. This man also has noticed that now there aren’t many open schools. He remembers that when we were growing up Missoula had many neighborhood schools and with fewer students back then to boot. (Missoula County Public Schools enrollment has dramatically increased in recent years (which, unfortunately and corruptly (is that a word?!) was predicted by a Missoula economist and which was subsequently ignored by school board members and a few superintendents).

Too much administration - I was talking about this topic with another friend and he said that they (school officials) think they have to have so many administrators in each school. His take - Just have the classes there and let the teachers teach. Granted, there are parameters set by the government, however, there can be ways to work around these in my opinion.

Missoula school watchdog - I agree with my fellow long-time Missoulian. And agree with my friend. I think that most people in Missoula also agree with us. We need to re-open our closed schools.We don’t need so many administrators per school. In the “good old days” we basically had one (!) administrator – the principal - per school and his secretary!
We could increase the number of administrative positions slightly - we just don't need so many!

Do you remember that old folk song  we baby boomers listened to sung by Joan Baez - "Where Have All The Flowers Gone?"  Couldn't we substitute flowers for neighborhood schools? Try it! It might be the next hit! (Just kidding but it was worth the thought, right?!)



 

KGVO Talk Back listener comment on raising the bar on school levies and bonds

I listen to KGVO's 1290 am Talk Back program in the morning. This program reaches about 20,000 people according to the hosts, Peter Christian and Jon King.

This morning, May 22, 2017, a caller spoke on the topic of school bond/levies elections. He said that somewhere in California the election must garner about 20-30 percent of the electorate to pass.

The host, Peter, mentioned that the teachers union's are incredibly organized and can get out the vote on behalf of the school district.

A problem arises when the majority of the citizen's view on a bond do not mesh with the school district's/teacher union's views. If a majority of citizen's do not wish a levy to pass there is a problem if not enough citizens vote in order to override the district/teacher union vote.

In general, the teacher union's vote would favor an increase in taxes as their salary is effected by a levy passage. In addition, school administrators put pressure on school staff to vote so that their pet projects get passed.

So, the caller has a good point - to better represent citizen's viewpoints (and their budgets) a state/city would be better served if there was a 20 to 30 percent voter turnout for school levies/bonds.

Jeanne

P.S. Had trouble with sizing of fonts today.