(C) Daily Montanan This story was originally published by Daily Montanan and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Heart Butte School Board votes to lay off 30 staff members – Daily Montanan [1] ['Nicole Girten', 'More From Author', '- January'] Date: 2024-01-10 Heart Butte School District School Board members voted unanimously Tuesday to lay off 30 staff members in an effort to cut costs as the district faces a $2.5 million liability in what state Superintendent Elsie Arntzen said was an unprecedented predicament in the state. Principal and acting district administrator Sandi Campbell was in tears following the decision. “I’m not going to be a functioning school tomorrow,” Campbell told the Daily Montanan. There are still a lot of unanswered questions surrounding whether the school will be able to keep its doors open even with these cuts, and what day-to-day operations will look like without kitchen or custodial staff or support for teachers in the classroom. The board has yet to release a contingency plan if the school can’t operate in the fall as it predicted may happen. Staff and community members are worried about how the school will operate moving forward, upset with the board for making this decision. Parents support the board’s decision, hoping it will keep the school’s doors open. Board members are upset they were put in a position of making this decision in the first place, asking the Office of Public Instruction, with state Superintendent Elsie Arntzen present at the meeting, for guidance to ensure they’ll never have to again. The district released its agenda with the cuts last week and in a statement on Saturday explained the financial crisis was due largely to financial mismanagement through not paying payroll taxes into employee retirement and making personal expenditures on the district’s dime. Superintendent Mike Tatsey has been accused of using school funds for expensive rodeo equipment. The school started the financial audit after the board placed Tatsey on administrative leave in September, following the closure of a youth home he oversaw earlier in the year. The meeting took place in the cafeteria, where minutes before starting custodial staff had cleaned the floors and tables and kitchen staff prepared meals for students. Just more than half of the kitchen staff and about a quarter of the custodial staff will remain employed with the district after Tuesday’s cuts. “I hope you guys think about that when you guys go to bed tonight, are these kids going to be fed tomorrow?” said Linda Aimsback, who worked in the kitchen. The district is slated to save more than $320,000 between February and June from the cuts alone, but these savings are just a fraction of the $2.5 million total in projected shortfalls the district is looking at, with about half attributable to mishandled funds. School Business Consultant Jenine Synness, who is assisting the district in examining what its liabilities are, clarified the earlier total liabilities the district released, $3.5 million, was incorrect due to a mathematical error on her part. Board member Edith Horn-Wagner said the decision is one the board didn’t want to make, but if they didn’t make cuts the school would shut down for everyone. She asked OPI staff present, Arntzen and OPI chief legal counsel Rob Stutz, for guidance. Arntzen said she’s happy to have OPI staff, specifically School Emergency Funds Director Wendi Fawns, help Heart Butte find untapped sources of revenue. She told press prior to the meeting OPI was there to listen and offer support. “We’re here to see how we can be part of the solution, but we’re not the solution,” Arntzen told the Daily Montanan. But in the meeting, Horn-Wagner doubled down, saying Heart Butte didn’t get to this point overnight. “Where has OPI been? You guys have to have been aware, we clearly weren’t,” she said. “We had an audit, I never ever saw the results of that audit, about a year or two ago, I don’t know. Had this all come out then, I think a lot of this could have been handled in a more, you know, happier way. But at this point in time, you know, we’re disrupting lives, we’re disrupting the education of our children.” “OPI has had to have known about it, you guys get the audit,” Horn-Wagner said. Stutz told the board the financial disclosure sent from the district last year didn’t show a deficit. OPI spokesperson Brian O’Leary previously told the Daily Montanan Heart Butte Schools submits an annual audit. The submitted 2022 audit was considered above board. Community members, including Belinda Bullshoe, were left wondering why OPI didn’t investigate the audit. “Are they not paying attention to Heart Butte school? To the district?” she asked. “The school is turned upside down. And I pray that OPI can do something about that.” The superintendent and OPI experts met with legislators Monday to discuss the potential use of the COVID Relief ESSER funds, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), and Impact Aid dollars to help support the school’s budget, according to O’Leary. Legislators, all Democrats, included Sen. Susan Webber, Rep. Tyson Running Wolf and Rep. Marvin Weatherwax, all from Browning. Rep. Jonathan Windy Boy of Box Elder and Rep. Dave Fern of Whitefish were also there. In a Facebook post, Webber said most of the legislator’s questions were not answered to their satisfaction. “OPI has much explaining to do, and we intend to hold their feet to the fire,” Webber said on social media. “It came down to OPI’s lack of providing support and technical services to Heart Butte School Board and its staff. OPI has an obligation and responsibility to at least alert schools at risk before they face the prospect of closing their doors.” Legislators will meet again with OPI on Friday via Zoom, according to Webber. She said other school districts may be in the same boat as Heart Butte. “What has been allowed to happen at Heart Butte has also happened in Wyola on the Crow Reservation, so we are not alone. Other Indian school districts may also be at risk; we don’t want to face that prospect,” Webber said. During the meeting, Pat Armstrong with the Blackfeet Tribal Business Council said the tribe also wants to help with providing funding to keep the school afloat. In the event the school shuts down, the board would have to approve students attending the nearest operating elementary or high school — in this case likely in Browning or Valier — that would be the most reasonable to attend, offering educational services appropriate for the grade level of those students, O’Leary explained in an email to the Daily Montanan. He said the district providing these services will be required to fulfill an obligation of providing transportation services to eligible students. But parents are weary of this option. Both Browning and Valier are a little more than half an hour drive away from Heart Butte and in harsh winter weather, it can be an icy, windy drive. One parent, a former board member Christy Calf Boss Ribs, has a son who had worked maintenance for the district and was to be cut on Tuesday night, but also had another child still in school. Calf Boss Ribs spoke in support of the board’s decision to make the terminations, even though it impacted her son, because she believed it would help keep the doors open. She said she feels bad for the employees impacted by the cuts, but they can find other work. The kids don’t have as much choice. Teacher’s assistants affected by the layoffs also spoke about how the cuts would impact their classrooms. One woman said the teacher she works with is out on maternity leave now. “Who is going to be here for them tomorrow, who’s going to be here for them for the rest of the week?” she asked the board. Through tears, teacher assistant Margaret Crawford told the board how assistants step in to teach when there are no substitutes and multiple teachers are out sick. “I know you guys got into this situation from the past or whatever, but I don’t think that this was the right choice, because the kids need us,” she said. Sixth grade teacher’s assistant Keelee Bear Child, a 21year old who graduated from the district only a few years ago herself, told the Daily Montanan she’s grown attached to her students. “My student, she kept asking me if I was going to be there tomorrow,” she said. “I didn’t have answers.” [END] --- [1] Url: https://dailymontanan.com/2024/01/10/heart-butte-school-board-votes-to-lay-off-30-staff-members/ Published and (C) by Daily Montanan Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/montanan/