MCPS spending thousands on modular only months after extending the lease of Prescott School to Missoula International School!!

missoula schools watchdog (msw) drove by Rattlesnake School today and observed that a fence surrounded the area where a modular is soon to be placed on the playground of the school.  Msw was quite upset at seeing the school district take this unnecessary step in facility management and considers it a continuation of the 2004 school closure scandal and 2004 private school lease and extension scandal.

msw has voiced it's opinion against placing a modular at Rattlesnake School in district meetings as there were other less costly ways to manage the overcrowding of the school. The preferable and least costly in the long run manner to handle the overcrowding at Rattlesnake School would have been to reopen Prescott School. 

Just seven months prior to the modular decision MCPS officials extended the lease of Prescott School to the private school, Missoula International School for an additional 5 years!  Prescott School is just down the road about a mile from Rattlesnake School. MCPS officials were aware that the Prescott School/MIS lease was estimated to have cost the district $500,000 just last year per a UM math professor and that an extension would continue the massive loses to the district.  

MCPS officials also knew prior to extending the lease that Rattlesnake School was at capacity or close to it.  This fact was brought up by a citizen during public comment during the lease extension discussions.  Moreover, in recent meetings the principal of Rattlesnake School stated that the school had been at capacity for the last three years.  School officials must have known this prior to extending the lease of Prescott School and if they didn't they reneged on their responsibility to keep track of enrollment and capacity issues.

msw suggested at a few meetings that the continuation of the employment of paraeducators would be preferable and less costly than busing more Rattlesnake area students out of the area.  Since 2004 middle school children living in the Rattlesnake Valley and East Missoula are bused to Washington Middle School.  To bus more of the valley’s children out of the Rattlesnake would have been extremely unfair.  msw suggested that paraeducators could be employed, as they had been doing, until the lease of Prescott School by Missoula International School expired in 2017. 

Additionally, and most importantly, the building of a MODULAR IS ONLY A STOP GAP MEASURE. The school district is ignoring the fact that the elementary school enrollment will continue to increase in the next few years; this information was supplied by an economist in a study commissioned by the district.  As an example of another stop gap measure, the district spent a half million dollars on an addition to Lewis and Clark School approximately four years ago and next year Lewis and Clark is sending a kindergarten class to Paxson School due to overcrowding.  What needs to be done in mwd’’s opinion is to OPEN MORE OF OUR UNUSED PUBLIC SCHOOL BUILDINGS, beginning with Prescott School.