Did Missoula County Public Schools close Cold Springs illegally? It is questionable in the mind of missoula school watchdog!

This post begins with some wording from the MCPS Policy 4333 dealing with school closures.

"Prior to the Board adopting a resolution closing an operating school, the Board shall consider the impact of such school closure on the education community.  In evaluating the impact, the Board shall consider at a minimum the following factors:  "Then then text lists about 7 considerations.'

The issue of a school closure for any Missoula County Public Schools school is addressed in Policy 4333, as mentioned,  under Public Relations. As many readers know, my family (a school closure affects the entire family, neighborhood, and the city as a whole) experienced a 3-school closure in 2004 and so I was part of the discussions of the policy. There are many aspects of the policy that are flawed, however, the emphasis of this post is - was the closure of Cold Springs School legal? 

My reasoning - the closure did not follow the school closure policy. As superintendent Mark Thane stated during his visit on KGVO's Talk Back program on Wednesday, May 23, 2018, the decision to close Cold Springs School was decided by a group of people during the school bond discussions. Each "active" school, as opposed to "non-active" school(in other words a closed school which was unfair to that school) formed a group to discuss the future of that school. 

I am thinking that a group formed to discuss the future of a school is not the proper protocol for closing a school according to the MCPS school board policy dealing with school closures, Policy 4333.

This issue needs more discussion. Time is of the essence. According to Thane, Cold Springs School will remain open until only next October or November and then the students will move to the new school (remember the Cold Springs bond group decided to build a new school - which was a flawed protocol in my opinion - and was later re-named Jeanette Rankin School.

The emphasis of this blog is the preservation of our neighborhood schools - for every neighborhood. As a person growing up in Missoula, this was considered normal. Missoula children didn't have to deal with constant closures and massive busing. We need to return to this tradition.

More to come on this issue - only on missoulaschoolwatchdog.blogspot.com!

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.