School board grapples with elementary deficit
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POLSON — The Polson School Board welcomed new members Nancy Lindsey and Bob Ricketts at a meeting held at Polson High School auditorium on May 9. During board reorganizaton trustees elected Caryl Cox chair and John Laimbeer vice-chair.
Then they returned to work on the budget deficit.
The public and board members discussed all sorts of cuts, from scaling down the school nursing program to eliminating the gifted and talented program to going half-time with art in the middle school programs, as well as eliminating the Indian education specialist, the curriculum director position and making the epecial education director a half-time position.
With losing 19 instructional positions and 11 classified people, to non-renewal, retirement and resignation, Lindsey said she was “not even close to convinced we‘ve considered all the alternatives.
A motion by Lindsey to move budget preparation to committee failed after much discussion.
Superintendent David Whitesell said the overhead has grown but not enrollment and the fact remains that 88.28 percent of the elementary budget is people.
“There is a bottom line even for education,” he said.
A special board meeting to discuss the list of possible cuts was scheduled tentatively for May 23.
PHS principal Rob Hankins announced graduation will be June 4 at 2 p.m. at Linderman gym.
Ricketts asked that PHS administration consider letting everyone decorate their mortarboard.
Hankins said he would ask students to submit a sketch of their cap decoration so he could look at them before graduation.
In other business, the board approved:
• Memorandum of understanding requests for an extension of the Polson Education Association contract language
• MOU for teacher Deanna McElwee to go to part-time during the 2011-12 school year
• a trip to Silverwood for the 8th grade field trip using student funds
• elementary and secondary personnel reports
• claims for April
The district powwow is scheduled for May 24.
