School Board Meets, Passions Run High

There is no doubt that the educators in Glasgow are passionate about what they do. The regular school board meeting was held Wednesday, Jan. 20 in the district board room. Attendance was healthy, with more than 30 people in the audience – most of them employed by the school system.

The board first heard reports from the student representative, Luke Breigenzer, and Principals, Rachel Erickson, Brenner Flaten, and Shawnda Zahara-Harris. Mike Zoanni, the principal at East Side School, was absent, so no report was given.

Items of interest noted in the reports given:

In 2017 Glasgow will be hosting the class B girls divisional basketball tournament, class B divisional track meet, the Northern B Divisional golf tournament, and the B/C softball tournament.

Ashley Fossum was officially hired as the C-squad girls basketball coach and Bryan Krumwiede was hired as the assistant softball coach.

Zahara-Harris reported that she recently attended the Annual MHSA meeting in Billings. At the meeting, a proposal to amend the wrestling weigh-in procedures passed and a proposal to amend the eighth-grade participation/academic/transfer by-laws failed.

The change in wrestling will allow a 2-pound allowance on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday for dual meets.

The proposed eighth-grade rule would have allowed eighth graders to play in all high school sports. With the proposal failing, the rule will remain unchanged. Eighth-graders can still participate with approval of the MHSA office in volleyball, basketball and track relay teams.

Zahara-Harris also complimented Brad Persinger, Maureen Leach, and Luree Chappell on the “phenomenal” winter concert held Dec. 21, and encouraged everybody to attend the District Honor Band and Choir concert.

The next agenda item addressed was a recommendation by Superintendent Bob Connors to allow Brenner Flaten to help as an evaluator at the Irle School. “I was asked to assist Rachel with her workload by the board,” Connors explained. “This is my recommendation.” If the recommendation passed, Flaten would be responsible, at this time, for evaluating 6 out of 13 tenured teachers at the school.

During discussion, concerns about the process were voiced by Trustee Amundson, GEA representative, Laurie Enebo, and third grade teacher, Carla Swenson.

When tasked with a vote regarding the recommendation, Trustee Amundson and Trustee John Daggett opposed, while Trustee Suzanne Billingsley and Trustee Alison Molvig approved. Without a majority, the motion failed.

The final agenda item up for discussion was a proposal to adopt a K-5 reading curriculum. Zahara-Harris presented some information about the process used to choose a possible curriculum. She indicated that the curriculum recommendation was not unanimous.

With some apparent confusion between the teachers present, administration and the trustees, the discussion moved forward with comments from several attendees of the meeting.

Speaking on behalf of the staff at Irle School, Betty Truscott presented several points in favor of adopting the “Journeys” reading curriculum instead of the “ReadyGEN” curriculum that was originally presented for consideration. Truscott reviewed the research conducted by staff to reach their decision and indicated that “everyone” at Irle was in agreement about the preferred curriculum.

Supt. Connors indicated he would not be able to make a recommendation to the board about the curriculum because he hadn’t had an opportunity to review the information provided to him.

Educators present in the audience indicated that they were instructed to have information available “by tonight” and only were given a week to prepare that information.

Board trustees indicated they had not had an opportunity to review any information and would like to see a cost analysis/comparison between the two proposed curriculums.

After a lengthy and sometimes passionate discussion, it was decided to table the agenda item until the next school board meeting. This will provide time for the board to review the information provided.

At adjournment, the board went into closed session to complete the superintendent evaluation.

The next school board meeting will be held Feb. 3 at 5:30 p.m. in the district board room. Members of the community are welcome and encouraged to attend.