Public school board meeting

Sunnyside Intermediate School Principal Carmen Lunak told the Havre School Board Tuesday during its monthly meeting that her school had reached a major landmark.

Lunak said she was proud that her school had reached 77 percent reading proficiency by the end of last year.

“That’s the entire staff for fifth grade — paraprofessionals — working together,” she added.

Lunak said the staff also made an effort to apply more hands-on activities for the students. Areas of focus included STEM — science, technology, engineering and math — art and physical fitness.

Evidence of the hands-on activities were displayed in the posters that Lunak had brought in with her which were made by students at Sunnyside.

Another highlight for Sunnyside, Lunak said, was when they had author Mike Thayer, who wrote “The Techno Wizard,” come speak to the students about writing and his book.

“When you have presentations or assemblies for students, you’d like there to be a variety to those assemblies,” she added. “That was a big hit. The evening event where they came in to meet the author, he spoke to parents about helping students be their best self. I was impressed. I just expected to have 30 or 40 people and I really lost count. It was bigger than I expected.”

Lunak said her fourth-grade teachers are covering different topics with their fourth-grade students. For example, a teacher might present cubism to her class, Lunak added, and then over the next few weeks, other students will rotate in so that all fourth-grade students will get that art component.

One of the other classes that came out of this initiative was Genius Hour. Lunak said the project they did was devoted to critical thinking. Students had to work as partners to create their own game and include instructions for their game. Once they created the game, they had to play it and then go back and revise the instructions.

“I went in and observed that last Friday, and I was pretty impressed with the work they had done,” Lunak added.

Lunak also said October was Bully Prevention Month and Sunnyside staff took the time to listen to what the students were saying about bullying.

Sunnyside had activities such as “Stand Up for Others” and a Week of Inclusion to help prevent bullying.

“The B word there is kind of a negative word and one of the things that we have really worked on is teaching a positive,” Lunak said. “So we can teach students to think before they speak. Is it kind? Is it truthful? So we’re trying to teach students skills. To be safe, to be respectful, to be responsible, so that they can be educated in school and teaching them to talk to an adult and to let us help them out.”

Sunnyside has almost completed their student surveys. Lunak said two classes are left, but that she is really pleased with the results she has gotten from students.

“Over 80 percent of our students want to work hard in school and go to college. They want to do a good job. They wanted to be educated,” she added. “Parents and students both feel that their teachers care about them and are positive role models.”

Lunak said they have not completed the parent surveys yet, which the parents have until the end of this week to fill out. She added they have about 25 percent response right now but she would like that to be higher.

Some areas need improvement Lunak added. She said students feel like they need to respect other students and the adults are working on teaching respect. Havre Public Schools counselor Patrick Campbell is working on teaching respect in what Lunak said is the “Second Steps Program” on Fridays.

Lunak said the effectiveness of these surveys has been proven. Last year, bullying was viewed as being a problem at the school with about 60 percent of the responses from students expressing a concern about bullying. This year, that number is at 46 percent.

“Are we done? Absolutely not. Everything has to be addressed,” Lunak added.

The themes for the next two months are integrity and respect, Lunak said.

Board of Trustees member Curtis Smeby and Ed Hill, along with Assistant Superintendent Craig Mueller, spoke about the Montana Conference of Education Leadership that was held in Billings Oct. 16-18.

Smeby said that he liked the information on utilizing technology in the classroom.

Mueller added that discussions were held on suicide prevention training, trauma sensitivity and self-care.

Board Vice Chair Harvey Capellen said he attended a meeting with representatives of the University of Montana and Montana State University education departments to discuss keeping in Montana students who are going to school to become teachers.

He added that this was the first of such meetings and they are planning to meet again in about six months time to revisit the same issues. Capellen said they want to try to work with the Legislature to also help with retaining current teachers in Montana.

A former board member who used to work as a recruiter in Nevada who was at the meeting said one of the biggest draws for teachers to move to Nevada from Montana was the offer to pay teachers twice what they were being paid in Montana.

“Now he works for us,” Capellen added, to help keep Montana teachers in the state.

Capellen said it would be beneficial to students who want to be teachers if they were able to get some sort of credit for taking classes or participating in teacher training while in high school.