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