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Jumbo, Prescott schools closed
JANE RIDER of the Missoulianmissoulian.com | Posted: Friday, March 26, 2004 12:00 am | Loading…
Amber Winkler, a student teacher at Mount Jumbo Elementary School, goes over multiplication problems with her third-grade class on Thursday. Early Thursday morning, the Missoula County Public Schools Board of Trustees voted to close Prescott and Mount Jumbo elementary schools.
Photo by JOSH PARKER/Missoulian
The Missoula County Public Schools Board of Trustees voted early Thursday morning to close Prescott and Mount Jumbo elementary schools and to turn Rattlesnake Middle School into a 360-student elementary school.
Trustees also instructed school administrators to retain the district's fifth-grade band and orchestra, its two elementary school art teachers and its one gifted-and-talented teacher.
The move means the district has closed all but $110,000 of a projected $860,000 shortfall in the elementary budget. Trustees instructed the board to cut the remainder from the district's discretionary funds.
The district's next step is to begin plans to relocate 345 students to MCPS's other middle schools by the fall of 2004-05. Principals have already begun meeting with small groups to begin that conversation, said MCPS Superintendent Jim Clark.
"I want to expand that," he said. "I want to include parents, kids, teachers and principals."
Four potential options for disbursement (see related story, A2) were provided to parents earlier this month, but Clark said the district will entertain other options as it gathers public input at community meetings.
Either the school board or administration will ultimately decide how to configure the district's middle school population. Clark said he will recommend the board direct administration to make that final decision. He expects community meetings to begin after spring break.
The board's 4-3 vote at about 1:30 a.m. Thursday, came after more than seven hours of discussion over the district's secondary and elementary budgets. Trustees Rosemary Harrison, Jenda Hemphill, David Merrill and Naomi DeMarinis voted in favor of the school closures and consolidation of Rattlesnake. Trustees Suzette Dussault, Carol Bellin and Colleen Rogers voted against.
The vote came after an earlier motion to close Prescott School and ship its students to Mount Jumbo failed, also on a 4-3 vote. Bellin, Rogers and Merrill voted for that motion; Dussault, DeMarinis, Harrison and Hemphill voted against.
Trustees then bogged down in nearly two hours of what DeMarinis called "stream-of-consciousness budgeting," in which they attempted to find various places to trim to produce a balanced budget.
During the evening, Prescott Principal Cindy Christensen made an emotional plea to the board to move ahead with closing Prescott, where enrollment has declined to just 128 students, expressing how emotionally and educationally difficult the threat of closure has been on the school's staff and students in recent years.
"This is not what's best for kids," Christensen said. She also argued that the school population has shrunk to a size of diminished energy.
Finally, Larry Johnson, the district's assistant superintendent for personnel and special services, asked trustees if they would support a package of some of the proposals offered by the administration. Specifically, Johnson asked if the board could accept a package that closed Prescott School, moved those students to Mount Jumbo, but kept Rattlesnake as a middle school.
Hemphill asked whether the board could restore the art, music and gifted-education programs - all of which were on the chopping block - if it moved ahead with the original recommendation to close both Prescott and Mount Jumbo and reconfigure Rattlesnake as a K-5 school. That, finally, was the essence of the motion that passed the board.
Merrill had indicated earlier in a straw vote that he wouldn't support closing Rattlesnake Middle School, but after the lengthy and futile effort to find money elsewhere to close the budget gap, he stated he was willing to close the middle school.
I'm not comfortable putting this off," he said. "This has been a very difficult process. I don't think we should continue down this path of indecision. I'm willing to change my vote."
Johnson noted earlier in the evening that if the board waited past the March 24 deadline to make a budget decision, it would reduce his ability to recruit the best and brightest teachers at area job fairs.
"I think the outcome is the best we can do, given the resources we have," Clark said later Thursday, while visiting Rattlesnake Middle School to answer questions from staff and students.
"After all the discussion and all of the agonizing over this, the majority of the board came to the realization that there just weren't other viable options to look at. That's a discouraging thing, but that is just a reflection of 10 years of cutting into that budget," he said.
The elementary budget also includes the expectation that Missoula residents will pass a $142,193 operating levy, which will be placed on the May 4 election ballot. If the levy passes, the owner of a home with a market value of $150,000 would pay about $5.70 more in school property taxes.
The preliminary elementary budget approved Thursday left out the closure of Lowell Elementary School, the privatization of printing or courier services, and the elimination of any central library positions. The board initially considered these items for reduction early in the budget process, but removed them after public input and board discussion.
Also during the late-night budget session, the 11-member board approved a tentative high school budget that included a $150,000 beverage contract and about $300,000 from a building reserve levy that would offset costs currently paid for from the general fund. The actual amount of the building reserve levy that voters will be asked to approve will be $450,000 annually for seven years. Passage of that levy will increase the property taxes on a home with a market value of $150,000 by about $10.92.
The board did vote to eliminate seven high school teaching positions, which schools are expected to absorb mostly through retirements. Clark said Thursday that building principals and academic department heads will meet to decide how best to disburse those cuts across the district's four high schools.
Originally, the administration had proposed eliminating golf, tennis and swimming and some sophomore sports, but those cuts came off the table after public and trustee input, and after the district learned it would receive additional special education revenues that reduced the need for those cuts.
Public comments after the two budget decisions early Thursday morning did reveal deep division remains on the board.
"The decision tonight is enormously harmful to our kids," Dussault said. "It's not in the long-term interest of the district."
Added Rogers: "I don't think we know the ramifications of the decision. Š We'll be right back here next year, making cuts."
Harrison provided the counterpoint: "I really do feel that we have made a good decision, and that makes me feel glad," she said.
Some trustees and members of the public who stayed until the end of the meeting called for greater public involvement in the budgeting process. They noted that the budget team that crafted the recommendations presented to the board included district officials and principals, but no members of the board or the public. Bellin said she hoped that next year the district would not have "an exclusive administration-only budget team."
For his part, Clark told the board, "I want you to know how much I've struggled with this. And I don't think you know that." He called it "the most difficult budget issue I've ever had."
Reporter Jane Rider can be reached at 523-5298 or at jrider@missoulian.com
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