IR Editorial

In our democratic society, it’s only fair to let voters make decisions on important issues such as whether to create a new school district. But all affected voters deserve to have a say.

During the current legislative session, school officials from across Montana have debated a bill that would allow some of the state’s elementary school districts to vote on whether to create a new high school district and build and operate a new high school.

Read more here  at the Helena IR.

Helena Public Schools Superintendent Kent Kultgen raised concerns at Tuesday night’s school board meeting about how a bill allowing for the creation of a high school in East Helena could affect Helena’s high schools.

His comments came hours after he released a newsletter that called the bill “complicated” and “unnecessary.”

Read more at the Helena IR.

The unknown of whether East Helena would build its own high school or students from East Helena would continue to attend Helena High School stalled decision making at the Helena Public Schools Facility Committee meeting Wednesday night.

The conversation among the committee revolved around the vision created during the community workshop held on Nov. 14, which included buying property and building a new Helena High on that land.

Read more at the Helena IR here.

East Helena residents who took the microphone on Tuesday night at the East Helena School board meeting voiced their support of legislation for the ability to build an East Helena High School.

Montana law passed in 1993 stops the creation of any new high schools districts. Legislation was put forward in the 2013 legislature to allow the creation of new districts, that bill passed the House but did not make it through the Senate.

Read more at the Helena IR here

At the Helena School Board of Trustees Facility Committee workshop Friday morning, a theme of starting the facility process by renovating or rebuilding high schools emerged.

“A lot of the other issues kind of solved themselves once you dealt with the high schools and middle schools,” Tony Perpignano, president of CWG Architects, said.

A group of architects first proposed the workshop to the Facility Committee several weeks ago.

Held Friday morning from 7:30-10:45 a.m., the workshop drew about 75 participants, about half of which were school, county and city officials. Many of the community members who showed up have been involved and vocal throughout the process, but some new faces turned out.

Everyone was divided into four roundtables for discussion, each led by an architect who served as a facilitator. The teams were given two hours to develop proposals and then each group presented.

Read more at the Helena IR here