Local school superintendents discuss issues districts are facing

Local public school superintendents met in Havre Thursday to talk about major problems and issues their districts are facing.

Montana Sen. Shannon O'Brien, D-Missoula, a candidate for Superintendent of Public Instruction, Montana Rep. Paul Tuss, D-Havre, attended the meeting.

Havre Public School Assistant Superintendent Brad Moore, who led the meeting, asked if superintendents could talk about their staffing issues as a jumping off point for a larger conversation.

Indeed a shortage of teachers and other staff was a huge theme of the meeting, with many superintendents saying its getting increasingly difficult to find teachers, primarily because people see what they need to deal with on a daily basis and don't want any part of it.

Even Jeremy MacDonald, superintendent of Box Elder Schools, which is fully staffed, said many of his teachers are there on emergency or provisional licenses.

He said the Office of Public Instruction has adjusted requirements for teachers, which has helped, but the shortage is still a problem.

Turner School Superintendent Tony Warren said they are short on teachers and as a result have had to consolidate elementary school classes, which is further stretching teachers who were already thinly stretched.

"We're making it work, but it's a challenge," he said.

Hays/Lodge Pole Public Schools Superintendent Daniel Lantis said they are relying on a lot of recently retired teachers who are coming back part time to fill in the gaps.

Lantis said they have been without a music teacher for a long time, and without a teacher or students the program has withered.

He said it used to be that they would get 10 to 12 people waiting in the wings when a position opened in the schools and now its lucky to get one, and he thinks he knows why.

Increasingly, he said, people are seeing what teachers have to put up with, from their state and national legislatures, the lack of respect they are shown and the ever-increasing responsibilities they are given and don't want any part of it.

"There just aren't a lot of people who want to work in the schools," he said. " ... It's frustrating."

A lot of the other superintendents echoed his sentiments, saying the increasing lack of respect for the profession has become a huge driver of the teacher shortage.

Moore said the Havre district has the advantage of being the cheapest place to live in its class, but that cost is creeping up and he's worried that may not be as effective a draw in the future as it has been.

Chester-Joplin-Inverness Public Schools Superintendent Luke Haggerty said his district is fully staffed, but the the road to getting there was incredibly difficult.

Haggerty said the shortage of teachers is such that they are offering jobs to people before they've even visited the area just because they are so desperate.

He said he's also concerned about the future of school administration as he suspects many people in those positions are moving toward retirement, and it doesn't look like enough people are entering the system to fulfill those eventual open spots.

Rocky Boy Schools Superintendent Voyd St. Pierre said his district has some unique problems, one of which is that it doesn't have the same tax base as its neighbors, which can make it hard to keep up.

As a result of the increasing scarcity of teachers and staff, neighboring districts find themselves fighting over the same handful of qualified individuals, superintendents said.

Tuss said one thing he wants to stress is the importance of Montana State University-Northern's education program.

He said when students from his district go to Missoula or Bozeman or practically anywhere else to get an education degree the chances of them coming back are effectively zero, but Northern is still producing teachers that go back into the local system, and he vowed to continue his support for their program.

Many at the meeting said this issue goes beyond teachers, but to other staff as well.

Moore said if is wasn't for the Havre district's student paraprofessional program they would be in serious problem.

Havre Public School's program has allowed high school students to work in lower grades as paraprofessionals assisting teachers and, Moore said, many that have gone on to college or gotten jobs have come back as part-time employees, being paid union wages for jobs they didn't have to train for because of their previous experience.

St. Pierre said he's also having trouble finding non-teaching staff, saying they're at the point that two cafeteria workers are being expected to serve 600 meals a day between them.

Superintendents also talked about the difficulties of finding bus drivers, which Tuss said he's hearing from superintendents across the state.

Sara Tempel, president of Bear Paw Cooperative, an organization that provides special education to students with disabilities, said her organization is facing unique challenges as well, many of them connected to the general lack of respect highlighted by the superintendents.

In addition to their fluctuating yearly funding, Tempel said, they are increasingly having all their power and authority taken away, which is putting them in dangerous situations.

She said they are effectively barred from any kind of physical intervention with a misbehaving student because they are so tightly regulated and spend so much time trying to avoid getting sued that they cannot protect themselves.

This has created an environment, she said, where it is getting increasingly hard to find paraprofessionals who are willing to do a job with the possibility of getting physically injured.

She said she understands that there have been cases of special education students being restrained in ways that were improper, but the reaction to those instances has gone too far in the other direction.

School Administrators of Montana Executive Director Rob Watson also spoke about a number of legislative and rule-making issues including some changes to accreditation procedures that superintendents said were extremely cumbersome.

North Star Public Schools Superintendent James Russell said he doesn't really think OPI understands the effect these kind of changes have on smaller school districts whose administration team is effectively one person.

"If I want to have an admin team meeting I go down to the boys' bathroom and look in the mirror," he said.

He said he's will do what he has to do to meet all of these requirements of course, but the result is going to be less time developing relationships with the students and teachers, and without those bonds the point of his job is gone.

This sentiment was echoed by other superintendents.

Montana Federation of Public Employees President Amanda Curtis, who was also at the meeting, said Watson tried to get the Board of Public Education to at least stagger the requirements so rural schools especially would have some more time to adjust and prepare, but that didn't seem to work.

Tempel said her profession is becoming so bureaucratically overburdened that two of her speech language pathologists, who have between 65 and 84 students to provide services to, are barely able to provide any service at all because they are so busy pushing paper.

Watson also talked about a number of bills that will affect school practices, policies and procedures, and he wanted to highlight a few that he thinks have fallen under the radar somewhat.

He said HB 890 requires school board to record the video and audio of their meetings and post them to their website within five days.

He said he suspects that the video can be turned off during executive session and if there are technical difficulties with recordings school boards are permitted to proceed with their meetings regardless.

He said the minutes taken at those meetings will remain the official record of said meetings.

Another law passed by the Montana Legislature that was discussed requires all schools to offer part-time enrollment to children in their districts should they ask for it, including those being home-schooled and going to private school.

Watson said under this law districts will be required to offer all the benefits and accommodations provided to these part time students as they would to full-time students including extra curricular activities.

He said the law does allow public schools to require part-time students to take up to 180 hours of instruction a year however, so they have some flexibility.

Another law will require districts to pay part of the tuition costs of students in their districts who decide to go to other districts.

In response to this discussion, some said it seems like the state is taking away a lot of local schools autonomy, which Watson didn't disagree with.

However, Watson said, it isn't all bad news.

He said a Montana judge partially blocked a new law that would make community choice schools more independent from the Montana education system, deeming parts of the law to be, likely, unconstitutional.

He also said the Legislature approved the creation of a new health insurance trust for schools across the state, which is great.

After over two hours of conversation Tuss said he continues to be extremely distressed by the fact that superintendents, and educators broadly feel like education as a profession is being disrespected, and, unfortunately, he sees a lot of that disrespect in Helena.

He said he wanted to apologize for the way that too many legislators have been treating the public school system and the people that keep it running.

O'Brien said most of the legislators, regardless of political party, are well-intentioned but many are undeniably out of touch with what actually goes on in these schools and the good work that is being done.

She said she knows people in Helena, people she's friends with, who think, wrongly, that public schools are having far too much money thrown at them and they need to see what educators are actually doing.

She encouraged the superintendents to reach out to their legislators and develop relationships with them, get them into the schools so they can get a better idea of what educators need and what they already do.

"We (legislators) are not doing well by our kids. We can do better and we must do better," she said.

Curtis said as much anger as there is at the Legislature she wants to make it clear that O'Brien, Tuss and Watson are all fighting for the people in that room and have practically perfect track records for supporting public education.

Tuss said if anyone at this meeting wants to talk to him about an issue or a bill or anything at all they can give him a call and he will answer.

O'Brien thanked everyone for their work.

"Thank you for holding the weight of the world, and the weight of your schools and your communities," she said.

Watson said he also wanted to let people know about an upcoming webinar series for educators on a number of urgent and hot-button issues, including one from teacher and school administrator Jason Neiffer, who has become a national-level expert in researching generative artificial intelligence and its potential impacts on the classroom.

Watson said Neiffer is an incredible resource for information on things like ChatGPT and what the emergence of programs like it mean for educators.

"It's pretty scary," he said.