New website address for Missoula County Pulbic Schools www.mcpsmt.org

Missoula County Public Schools now has a new website address.  It is www.mcpsmt.org.  The website has a new look with revolving pictures on the home page.  Although the site may be more visually appealing, for missoula schools watchdog it is more difficult to read as the writing is green and not very large.

msw (missoula schools watchdog) went to the website in order to view some minutes from a past meeting.  msw found it difficult to find the location for the links to the archived meetings. 

This is how you find the link to the archived meetings:

**On the home page for the school district one will see a link at the top labeled, "About Us". Click on this link.

** Look on the left side of the page and you will see another link labeled, "Board of Trustees".  This is where it is confusing as it is unclear if this is a link to just the Trustees or to other information such as meetings.  It turns out this is where one looks to find the archived meetings.

**Look for "Helpful links" on the left and find the link titled, "Agendas and Links for Board Meetings" and click.

This page has not changed with the new website design which is quite disappointing.

msw has long requested from the administration, including the superintendent, that more of the MCPS Committee Meeting Minutes be posted on the district website.  It appears that administrators were not interested in expanding the number of minutes posted and have only posted the same six meeting minutes. 

msw believes that the city posts minutes from all city meetings.  If the city can arrange to do this then it would seem possible for the school district to do likewise with little trouble, especially when they are revamping their website.

The reason this is a concern is that there are several "Superintendent Cabinet Meetings" scheduled in the next few days.
On the agenda of one of the meetings is the subject of facilities. 
If one is interested, as msw is and most likely many others, the minutes are not available on the website.  The district seems to be lacking a desire to share what is going on in this meeting and in other meetings as well. A lot of very important information is being withheld, electronically that is. One can always go into the superintendent's office and request a copy of the minutes for a fee, however, this is quite inconvenient.

Although the website may be more visually appealing, the overall change was not worth the cost (does anyone know how much - probably an arm and a leg?!) and more specifically does not allow for added transparency in the district's business which one would expect in an upgrade.