Superintendent rolls out leveling plan
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POLSON — The Polson School Board of Trustees meeting on May 10 packed about 40 bodies into the district office conference room.
Many of the teachers and staff members were at the meeting to hear Superintendent David Whitesell unveil his leveling or reconfiguration idea for School District #23.
Whitesell said the idea came from a meeting he had with Darin Gunlock and Gehrand Bechard. Gunlock teaches the Building Trades class. High school students in the class also earn college credit, and college students may also take the class to garner credit. Building Trades classes learn construction skills by building a house from the ground up.
It’s tough to sell houses right now, and the Building Trades class needed money to buy more land. Bechard and Gunlock were looking for a source of funds other than the Flathead Builder’s Association, Whitesell said.
Since space is a problem in many of District # 23’s schools, Whitesell said he thought about the modular buildings behind Polson High School and considered sending the plans for those buildings to Gunlock and Bechard.
“What if we plop six of those pods behind Cherry Valley?” Whitesell said.
Whitesell said he was throwing out the idea that then there would be room to send second grade back to Cherry Valley and bring fifth grade back to Linderman. He asked the administrative team to make a list of pros and cons of the educational value to student achievement if these changes were made for the 2011-2012 school year.
Pros included: natural development of grades k-2, 3-5 and 6-8, less duplication of special education services, improvement of schedule for 6th to 8th graders and balance administrator ratios.
Cons were: a bigger transition from 5th to 6th grade than from 4th to 5th grade, loss of specialized instruction services for 5th graders, an increase in specialized instruction at Cherry Valley and does not deal with space issues at Linderman.
After much discussion among trustees and comments from the public, the board approved allowing Whitesell to put the building specifications for the pods out to bid.
In other business, Lake County Superintendent of Schools Gale Decker swore in new school board trustees Kelly Bagnell and John Laimbeer before the meeting. The board approved the election canvas. During board reorganization, Theresa Taylor was elected the chair of the board of trustees and Caryl Cox vice-chair.
Cox presented information on a coherent governance training she attended at the National School Board Association meeting. According to the presentation, school boards need to make decisions at the policy level that makes boards more active and less intrusive.
The MTSBA investment policy for First Interstate Bank investments agenda item was moved to the May 17 meeting.
During school reports, Bill Appleton from Polson High School brought Counselor Jesse Yarborough. They presented a plan for alternative education. Appleton would like to house the alternative education kids in the industrial arts annex and plans to use the Montana Digital Academy as the online education program.
Polson Middle School held its creativity showcase on May 3. The showcase focused on student art, projects, music, home economics projects, poems, dioramas and many other items.
The University of Montana Spectrum Science program will be featured at Cherry Valley and Linderman Elementary Schools. The spectrum team will be at Cherry Valley on May 20 and 21 and at Linderman on May 24, 26 and 27. The evening of May 27 will be a family night at Linderman.
Special Education Director Barbara Luttrell reported on the kindergarten roundup where she met “the class of 2023.”
A mediation session is scheduled with the Polson Classified Education Association on May 27 at 3:45 p.m.
The trustees approved:
• Elementary and secondary personnel reports
• Insurance committee recommendation for 2010-2011
• April claims
The next school board meeting will be held on May 17 at 5 p.m.
