School daze | Features | Missoula Independent

Click on the link below to read an article on the 2004 Missoula School closures writted by Keila Szpalier of the Missoula Independent (now with the Missoulian).

School daze Features Missoula Independent


Keila Szpalier did such an excellent job in her article reporting on the proposed school closures in 2004. As this article is quite long, I've decided to post just some of  the many interesting quotes and information.


"On March 24, school board trustees will vote on how to balance the budget. Five years ago, the administration asked the board—with three of the same elementary trustees—to solve similar budget problems by closing Emma Dickinson and Roosevelt elementary schools, and once again, the administration is recommending school closures to manage deficits."

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"Lowell, Prescott and Mount Jumbo are on the chopping block not because closures are part of a long-range plan, not because the proposed closures have been subjected to careful scrutiny and found beneficial, not because the administration believes busing children to larger central schools results in higher quality education, not even because the school district expects to realize long-term financial gain from school closures. It doesn’t. In Missoula, schools close in response to red ink."

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"In 1999, the administration gave board trustees just two weeks to review the option of closing Emma Dickinson."

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"Lowell, Prescott and Mount Jumbo are on the chopping block not because closures are part of a long-range plan, not because the proposed closures have been subjected to careful scrutiny and found beneficial, not because the administration believes busing children to larger central schools results in higher quality education, not even because the school district expects to realize long-term financial gain from school closures. It doesn’t. In Missoula, schools close in response to red ink."

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"Keith Fank, who has two children at Chief Charlo, fails to understand how Missoula has a brand new jail but can’t support its schools. He wouldn’t like to see his children bused across town, and he does not support the closure of schools in other neighborhoods: “Kids should get to go to school with kids in their neighborhood and kind of grow up with them instead of getting shuffled because somebody can’t handle the books.”"

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"Not Missoula. One administration proposal is that children from Lowell, Prescott and Mount Jumbo be bused up to Rattlesnake Middle School. Children currently at Rattlesnake Middle School would be bused elsewhere. There is no clear plan for their distribution."

 

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 "What this school district has become good at,” says former Emma Dickinson parent Bill Comstock, “is how to move small human bodies around efficiently.”

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"The school district simply raises taxes to accommodate transportation to and from school, because it can. The social and environmental costs of busing aren’t a priority for the administration."

Edited on December 17th, 2013