Missoula needs to vote in new school board that will listen, send message on levies (letter to the editor by David Dayton to the Missoulian)

Click on the link below to read an online letter to the Missoulian regarding the upcoming school board election and the levies on the ballot.

It is written by David Dayton.  He does a great job in letting us know just how much Superintendent Apostle is earning now and in the remaining years of his contract.  Additionally he reveals the salaries of the three regional directors, Karen Allen, Heather Davis-Schmidt, and . (ALOT!)

Thanks, David, for digging for the information we all need to know.

Missoula needs to vote in new school board that will listen, send message on levies

Here are some additional thoughts from msw on the issues David Dayton brings up in his letter:


As mentioned, the salary information is great - I knew the regional directors were earning quite a bit but I had no idea they were over the $100,000 apiece mark – WOW!  And the superintendent's salary is way out of line, of course.

The following are some quotes from the letter:

"They offered and he signed a contract that will pay him increases through 2015 plus a monthly payment of $1,875 to his TSA for a total of $22,500 a year and assorted other goodies. Let’s look at the totals: 2013 salary of $175,000 plus TSA for a total of $197,500; 2014 salary of $185,000 plus TSA for a total of $207,500; 2015 salary of $200,000 plus TSA for a total of $222,500. If you want the full story on his contract, contact MCPS for a copy."

"Three regional directors were added to Apostle’s administration; each with salary of $107,105 for a total of $323,115. I did a search of the Northwest looking for similar size districts with these positions and did not find any. What I found was: Seattle public with an enrollment of 45,000 had five, Portland with an enrollment of 47,000 had five, and LA public with an enrollment of 640,000 had five. MCPS has an enrollment of 8,466 with three."

When attending school board meetings a few years ago - I heard the business director state that the salary and benefits portion of the budget needs to be in the 80% range. 

Now S & B's are 90% of the budget, no doubt due to the salaries you have laid out for us.  Additionally, over the last couple of years I’ve also noticed that there was another administrator added to the staff at the Dickinson Adult Learning Center at I’m guessing $80,000, the out-of-the-blue raise for the public relations person, Leslie Brassfield, adds an extra $10,000 (which came out of the stimulus money last year), a liaison person for the Missoula Education Foundation (which is made up of unpopular former Board members and a despised superintendent) earns approximatley $30,000 (probably more), and most likely other salaries of which the public may not be aware.

When Superintendent Apostle first arrived he stated he was going to make Missoula the best school district in the nation.  msw was skeptical of his claim as what needed to be done to fix the mess left by his predecessor(s) within the district was not in his list of things to do.

 Instead it appears that his plans were to join other school districts across the nation and completely change our schools with the 21st Century model of education.  This 21st Century model as it turns out is a international curriculum which has many troubling aspects.  From what I understand it is more of a European model of education which has proved to be flawed in many respects. So in order to transform a school district he had to hire the regional directors. 

 And this is where the technology levy comes in - in the 21st Century model there is an extremely heavy emphasis on technology.  That is why the district wishes to increase wireless capability in all of our schools so that there is enough band width for all of our students to use computers, laptops, interactive whiteboards, iPods, etc.  Yet it is my belief and that of others that all this technology is NOT really in the best interests of our children. 

  We hear about the ways that students get into trouble using these gadgets almost on a daily basis - some students have been caught cheating on tests using their cell phones, a large portion of our children are getting on inappropriate websites, children go to ESPN while they are supposed to be researching a project (true story), etc. etc And, NO, msw will not vote for the levies.

msw will not vote for any school district levy until the district quits coddling private schools and returns Prescott School to its rightful owners, public school children.  The district loses approximately $300,000 to $500,000 per YEAR on this lease and most likely more as the enrollment of Missoula International School is now up to 186 students (33 students in 2004!), no doubt due to the leasing of Prescott School.

edited on May 19, 2013, June 5, 2013
Note:  There are some problems with the layout of this post - msw will attempt to remedy these as time and expertise (? :)) permits.