Missoula International School hopes to renew lease on Prescott School building - Missoulian article from July of 2011

Why did Trustees ignore many facts about what was happening in the Rattlesnake Valley and in Missoula in general when they extended the lease for 5 more years?

Why did Trustees not take into account Missoula demographics (the district's has its own demographic report - see link on the top of the home page of Prescott School Missoula) - which pointed out that elementary enrollment was on the rise?

Trustees did not take into account that Rattlesnake School, just up the road was at capacity.  This was painfully apparent to Rattlesnake principal, Jerry Seidensticker as he needed 11 para educators last school year as many classes were over the state limit for class size standards.

Trustees did not take into account the HUGE subdivision on E. Broadway (115 Units), which was sure to house elementary children, the Silvertip Apartments.  News of these apartments was in the papers several times prior to this vote.

Since Trustees approved the extension of the Prescott School/Missoula International School lease for 5 years MCPS has had to --

Consider busing Rattlesnake School kids to Paxson, which as it turns out did NOT have rooms available for the Rattlesnake students.

The fact that Paxson was also close to capacity was revealed at a meeting at Paxson with the Rattlesnake parents.  The principal of Lewis and Clark stated at the meeting that one room in Paxson would need to be used for a L&C kindergarten class and the other rooms were actually being used for MCPS programs such as deaf education. 

Additionally, doesn't Paxson need a little wiggle room in regard to classroom space?  Paxson will soon be dealing with capacity issues also as Trustees Harrison, Hemphill, Bixler, Toth, and Rehbein voted to sell Roosevelt School (Roosevelt area students now attend Paxson) in 2005.

And most importantly, MCPS has BUILT AN EXPENSIVE MODULAR AT RATTLESNAKE SCHOOL THIS SUMMER (2012)!!

The district's outright and blatant favoritism of a private school over a public school is inexcusable and is grounds for the resignation of ALL MCPS Trustees as called for by Prescott School Missoula in a earlier post. 

All Missoula taxpayers are paying for an approximately $250,000 unnecessary modular because of the decision made at the meeting which is discussed in the article linked to below.

SO MUCH MORE TO SAY-- SO LITTLE TIME ----




Missoula International School hopes to renew lease on Prescott School building  (link to article is work in progress)