Missoulian article from the December 22, 2012 edition - Hellgate 4-0 going into holidays after blitzing Butte : Boys' Basketball - and athletic transfers comments

Click on the link below to read about the Hellgate High School Boys Basketball Varsity team -

Hellgate 4-0 going into holidays after blitzing Butte : Boys' Basketball


The Missoulian newsprint edition of this story is headlined, "Tinkle powers Knights" with a picture of Tres Tinkle guarding a Butte player.

This brings up the subject of transferring athletes from one school to another in a school system.

Last season this was a hot topic as not only did Tres Tinkle transfer as a freshman from Big Sky High School but there were many other transfers on the Hellgate High School team from other areas such as Frenchtown and Florence.

Things were not getting off to a good start last season at Big Sky High School as Coach Lasovich resigned and the school hired a new coach.  The team was struggling under Ty Solberg. To be fair, things were not all that rosy under the coaching leadership of Coach Lasovich and perhaps Solberg's team would have shown improvement during the year had the team remained intact in addition to working out the kinks throughout the season. Tres Tinkle played on the Big Sky team one week and the very next week transferred to Hellgate and was immediately playing on Hellgate's JV team.

The significant question is - IS THIS FAIR TO PLAYERS THAT LIVE IN THE BOUNDARIES OF HELLGATE HIGH SCHOOL?

The answer is an emphatic NO!

For Tres Tinkle to walk on the JV team at Hellgate is unfair to every JV player that was on the team last year.  msw was aware of  complaints from some of the JV parents about this lack of fairness for their boys.

In the first season of Jeff Hays coaching career at Hellgate High School, two transfer students from Sentinel played on the Varsity team. To begin with this means that two players were not selected from the Hellgate boundary area and did not even have a chance at playing basketball.

One of these Sentinel transfer players started in every game and the other played sporadically. These players had played on the Sentinel Spartans team the year before. 

The transfers took away playing time for some of the seniors that had played for Hellgate their entire high school years. Many of these seniors displayed a lot of talent in previous years for the Knights and were thrown under the bus by Coach Jeff Hays and his staff.

In comments published in last years Missoulian articles addressing this topic one can read that many people have grave concerns about allowing rampant transferring of high school athletes. The majority of comments were that indeed, as mentioned above, it is not fair to the current players on the team and also to the players that have been playing at the lower levels and were slated to move up to JV or Varsity.

What came out of the online discussion is that athletes NEED TO WAIT OUT A YEAR before trying out to play at the newly transferred to school.  THIS IS FAIR.

One may say - the Hellgate boys in the district need to just practice more and get better so that they can compete with the transfers.

The above statement is right on. There are so few spots, however, on a basketball team - 12-14 players.  So even if a player is really working hard and shows some talent, his/her chances to make the team and to play significant time on the team is decreased by the transferring athlete(s).

So - do basketball players in this era, that live within the Hellgate High School boundaries and want to have a chance to play basketball need to think seriously about looking at his chances of playing at other area schools?  YES. Hellgate High School has a high number of student athlete transfers. 

Another aspect of the Hellgate Knights Boys basketball team is that even if an athlete exhibits great talent currently and in past years he may not be asked to play a lot. This is because, with all due respect, the father/son coaching duo show favoritism with their players.  If they do not like a player they will not play him even if a player has quite good stats on the state level. Can one say cold hearted and callous? - YES.


This topic has many tentacles that could be broached here. One could read the many comments from last years discussions on student athlete transfers by using google.

The article mentioned above was published in February of 2012.  The Missoulian deletes comments after articles after a unknown time period.  This is unfortunate as there were many valuable comments posted.

edited on March 21, 2013, March 23, 2013

Missoulian article from the December 22, 2012 edition - Unfounded threat rumors roil 2 Missoula high schools

Click on the link below to read about rumors of threats to two Missoula High Schools and to the Hellgate basketball team.

Click on the following link to read about threat rumors at two of Missoula's high schools.

Unfounded threat rumors roil 2 Missoula high schools

Quotes from the article follow:


"As for where the rumor about a threat to members of the Hellgate High School basketball team started, no one really knows, said Heather Davis Schmidt, a regional director."

"The team’s coach approached the school’s principal, Lisa Hendrix, and said athletes were worried about a rumor. Could she come talk to them?"

"Hendrix talked with the team, explained there was no basis to the rumors, that they were safe and that the school was safe. She asked if any team members wanted her to talk to their parents."

"Several basketball players said they would feel more comfortable if she contacted their parents, and so Hendrix asked for those students to write their names on a list so she would know who to call."

Single-sex education is on the rise

missoulaschoolswatchdog came across this article in the news and decided to post it on this blog.

Single-sex education is on the rise

msw is not taking a position on this issue - it is only posting it to provide a little information on this topic.

msw does believe there is validity in separating boys and girls for some classes, more specifically, health and P.E. This was done not too long ago in MCPS high schools.  By not too long ago msw means in the 1970's :).

There was an article in the Missoulian reporting on some single-sex classes taking place in Bonner School not too long ago. msw may post that article as time permits.

Was Toni (Toni Rehbein) Trustworthy Before Becoming a MPCS Trustee?

Did Toni Rehbein have a good record to stand on before being elected to the Missoula County Public Schools Board of Trustees? Had she displayed ethical behavior in her previous employment with MCPS?

According to past Missoulian articles reporting on Toni Rehbein (formerly Toni Smartt), the answer to the above question is unclear.

The Missoulian reported on a potential conflict of interest problem concerning Toni Smartt in relation to two of her jobs connected to Missoula County Public Schools.  

The April 14th, 1990 article was followed by another on April 20th,
(post regarding that article will be forthcoming) on the same issue.  In both articles there isn't information on how the investigation ended and on any conclusive decisions.

There is reason to believe that after reading the information in the articles that if there was no intentional "double dipping", (which we do not know if there was or not) Toni Smartt (now Toni Rehbein), at the very least, needed to avoid the appearance of any impropriety and not work for or get a pay check from Community Care.


Missoulian article on April 14^th of 1990

The article titled is titled:

“A conflict of interest,  (lower case letters as was printed in the Missoulian)

with a subtitle of -

"School official’s off-duty job raises legal question”

By Gary Jahrig and Michael Moore of the Missoulian

"Deputy Missoula County Attorney Mike Sehestedt, who acts as the school district’s attorney, delivered that message Thursday after investigating concerns raised about Smartt’s affiliation with Community Care, Inc."

"Community Care works with schools and community organizations to educate young people in the prevention of alcohol and drug abuse."

"Smartt, whose district salary is $39,650, coordinates District 1’s drug and alcohol programs, and also works as middle-school coordinator.  The district’s drug and alcohol program is in part paid for by a federal grant that Smartt “monitors” according to Block."

"District 1 uses the federal money to contract with Community Care for workshops designed to help district employees recognize and deal with chemical abuse."

"Smartt’s conflict, according to Sehestedt, arises because Community Care sometimes hires her to run those workshops.   Smartt also serves on Community Care’s   board of directors."

"Dorothea Lambros, president of Community Care’s board, said Friday that she is not sure how much money Smartt is paid.  Block said District 1 paid Community Care about $25,300 last year."

"The Code of Federal Regulations which governs use of grants, states that employees of a grant recipient, in this case the school district, are not to have “financial or other interest” in a firm that receives grant money, as Community Care does. "

"“It appears to me that if an employee who administers a contract supported by federal funds has an interest in the corporation that receives the funds, and in fact receives money from that corporation, then you’ve got a conflict,” Sehestedt said."

"Block said that although he was not aware of any problem with the current arrangement, he would abide by any decision Sehestedt reached."

"“If it’s a problem …we are going to correct the problem,” Block said. “The only way I can see correcting it straight off, without being totally disruptive to the training program as we go on, is to say, Toni Smartt, you’re no longer part of the Community Care, Inc. board, “plain and simple.”"

"Sehestedt said he was less concerned by Smartt’s position on the board than with her contract relationship with Community Care."

"“I think it’s possible that she could still serve on the board, so long as she is not receiving remuneration for her service,” Sehestedt said. "

"Block said the matter would be taken up with Smartt next week when she returns to work after the District 1 spring break."

"“If that is a violation,” Block said, “I’m not going to place this district in a position of liability.”"

"Block said that when Smartt “moonlights in training in the area of drug awareness and addiction,” she does so on her own time."

"“When she is doing that kind of training she is on leave without pay from the school district because obviously we don’t have any double dipping going on,” Block said."

"Sehestedt said the conflict of interest exists regardless of whether Smartt is on her own time when she works for Community Care."

"Part of Smartt’s job description with District 1 calls for her to coordinate efforts with Community Care and represent the district on the organization’s board of directors."

"Contacted at home by the Missoulian, Smartt said she was unable to comment on the matter because she was unaware o f the conflict or Sehestedt’s recommendation."

"Lambros said Community Care will do nothing to endanger the grant, or the organization’s attempts to h help children."

"“We want to do the right thing,” she said. We don’t want to put anyone in a position of conflict.  …We will resolve matters in a way that ensures that.”"

 

MCPS correspondence - No vote for the International Baccalaureate program at Hellgate HIgh School!

missoula schools watchdog sent in a request for documents form (form available on the district website) and asked for information on the International Baccalaureate program,  (msw did not really request any documents although using this specific form is the only avenue available by the district), and received the following information. 

msw appreciates Carol White's (the executive administrative assistant to Superintendent Apostle) work on behalf of requests for information and documents.
***************************************
The email follows -

Sent: Tuesday, July 05, 2011 7:45 PM
To: Carol L White; Alex P. Apostle
Subject: Was there a vote for the approval of the International Baccalaureate Program?

Carol and Superintendent Apostle,

I have been looking over some of the minutes and the agendas for Board Meetings. I am not clear on whether the IB Program has been approved by the Board with an official vote.

Can you please clear this up for me? 

The Board voted to approve a Grant Application for $20,000 in funding to pay for the teacher training and the original IB program application in April of 2009. The implementation of a program like IB itself is historically not something that the Board has to approve with an official vote. They have requested to be kept informed on it’s progress and Roberta Stengel has been giving regular updates at the Board meetings.

Is there some recent figures on how much this program is going to cost and how much it has cost so far?

The IB program, to date, has cost $42,608. The projected cost of the program will depend on how it is implemented in the future. We don’t have specifics on this.

Is this information somewhere on the district website? If not, that would be great if it was!!

This information is not available online at this time. We generally do not post this type of financial information online unless it is part of the budget process.

Can you tell me what the line item is for all the costs associated for the IB program?

There is no line item for IB in the general budget at this time, as the costs incurred so far have been paid for by a donation from the Washington Foundation to develop an IB program.

Costs covered to this point have been application fees, teacher training, instructional supplies and a coordinator stipend.

****************************************************

msw has the following observations on the answers received from the superintendent's office -

According to the information in this email there was NOT a vote on the implementation by the MCPS Board of Trustees.
For such a wide reaching and expensive program it seems that a Board vote by the all MCPS trustees would have been prudent.

The district does not seem to understand that citizens like transparency in government, especially where their money is concerned.  It is troubling that IB costs cannot be listed on the district web site.

NO LINE ITEM FOR IB COSTS IN THE DISTRICT BUDGET - THIS GETS A RED FLAG FROM Missoula Schools Watchdog!

IN JULY, 2011, THE DISTRICT STILL HAD NO IDEA WHAT THE IB PROGRAM WAS GOING TO COST THE DISTRICT.

 

"Missoula schools are Agenda 21 compliant" - a caller said on KGVO's Talk Back radio show

missoula schools watchdog listens to KGVO's "Talk Back" radio show which airs between 8:30 and 10:00 a.m. every day fairly often to hear what other Missoulians are thinking.

One day, May 16, 2012, was significant for msw as a comment was heard linking the school district and Agenda 21, two topics of interest.

A man called in toward the end of the show and said that he had heard someone say that "Missoula schools were Agenda 21 compliant".

WOW!

Are school officials going to come out and say to Missoula media sources, "We are now Agenda 21 compliant"?

msw thinks not - MCPS has a way of sneaking things into our schools.

All we have to do is look at what they are doing and it is quite evident that what thia man heard is correct.

21st Century learning, Interntional Baccalaureate program at one high school and discussions of making Lewis and Clark an IB school, global studies program at Mount Jumbo mentioned, massive increases in technology, Common Core standards, etc.....

missoula schools watchdog advocates for....and does NOT advocate ....

On December 1st, 2012, missoula schools watchdog blog added a subtitle to the blog title.  It follows in a different format below -

missoula schools watchdog is an advocate for:

neighborhood schools,

district transparency and accountability,

a basic education (the three R's),

and a K-8 grade school configuration.

missoula schools watchdog does NOT advocate for:

closing (or selling) schools,

unnecessary busing,

public schools helping private schools such as Missoula International School (the competition),

irresponsible spending,

and unnecessary and expensive programs such as the International Baccalaureate Program.

misssoula schools watchdog is for options such as homeschooling (being a former homeschooler) and private schools (being a former private school parent). 

msw also believes that smaller neighborhood public schools with a qualified staff offering a basic education are a great benefit to a community.

Finding big savings should be rewarded - Missoulian editorial published on November 15th, 2012 reporting on the savings found by Pat McHugh of MCPS

Click on the link below to read a Missoulian editorial published on November 15th, 2012 on the issue of MCPS business director's work on saving the district money by refinancing money owed by the district.

Finding big savings should be rewarded