Html : Interactive: Montana prep basketball championship statistics - a great chart on the history of high school basketball championships in Montana

Below is a great great graph of the history of championships in Montana basketball history.  msw is not sure who created the graph - it was found on the Missoulian website on March 22, 2013.

Good job to whoever compiled the stats and created the graph!! 

Html : Interactive: Montana prep basketball championship statistics

MCPS seeks candidates for seats on Board of Trustees

Click the link below to read a Missoulian article on applying to run for the school board.  If a person is interested in running for the school board he/she needs to take their nominating petitions into the County Courthouse on 200 W. Broadway  by 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, March 28. 

If you are interested in running against Toni Rehbein, Scott Bixler, Joe Toth, or Drake Lemm please keep the above information in mind.

Many Missoulians, including msw, would like to see these malevolent trustees ousted.

MCPS seeks candidates for seats on Board of Trustees


Thank you to any responsible citizens for considering to serve a term on the Missoula County Public Schools school board.

Basketball players' transfers to Hellgate High prompt call for review of policy

Click on the link below to read a Missoulian article reporting on the high number of basketball transfers at Hellgate High School in Missoula.  This article was published in the February 2, 2012 edition.


Basketball players' transfers to Hellgate High prompt call for review of policy


As mentioned this article was published in 2012.  As we now know there were even a greater number of basketball transfers to Hellgate from other high schools in the area, both within the district and from without.  msw is uncertain who all the Hellgate transfers were on the 2012-2013 Hellgate basketball teams, however, this would be interesting to know.  It is the belief of msw that there were approximately 6-7 transfers.

Question:  Has there been a review by any school officials on any level regarding problems with high school student athlete transfers and more specifially the high school basketball transfer?

msw is not aware of any review - if anyone knows if there has been discussions on this topic by state officials please post a comment.

See prior post for more conversation regarding student athlete transfers.

Here are some quotes from the article mentioned above:

"The Missoula Hellgate boys' basketball program is getting lots of attention these days."
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"Hellgate recently welcomed in two highly regarded transfers from other high schools in the region - with more possibly on the way - leaving coaches, players and fans all scratching their heads over the mid-season exodus."
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"Last week, Frenchtown sophomore Hunter Mahlum began taking classes at Hellgate. Then on Monday, 6-foot-3 freshman Tres Tinkle transferred from crosstown rival Big Sky. Both are currently playing with the Knights' JV team."
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"Mahlum played mostly JV at Frenchtown."
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""I can't comment on the intentions of each individual family," Big Sky coach Ty Solberg said. "But I do know there are people around the state who are concerned about this.""
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"Tinkle, the son of Montana men's basketball coach Wayne Tinkle, was one of the first players off Big Sky's bench this winter. He made his first varsity start last Saturday against Hellgate, scoring eight points.""

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"My issue, perhaps, is with the adults involved.""

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"And by adults, Solberg means the policy makers who write the rules."
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"As it stands now, players who transfer from one district to another must sit out 90 school days before resuming play at the varsity level. But, as Solberg points out, Missoula schools are part of the same district - Tinkle could play varsity if his residence was within Hellgate's attendance area - and with open enrollment transferring is pretty simple."

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"Solberg would like to see a stricter rule put in place. Perhaps one similar to the Greater Spokane League, which makes athletes sit out one school year if they transfer.
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""It's tough when these things happen, especially during the season," Solberg said. "I don't want there to be an option for there to be grass that's greener on the other side. I want it to be let's improve here, with the guys I went to elementary and middle school with. Those are valuable lessons. Call me old school, but I would like the thought process to be let's make it better.""
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""I would like to give everyone the benefit of the doubt," he added. "I just hope it isn't being initiated by our leaders.""
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"Hays denied recruiting the players, which is against Montana High School Association by-laws."
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"They all play AAU basketball together and then they all start talking. They're kids. We have to understand as coaches, yeah, we try to steer them the right way in life ... but it snowballs and everybody calls their buddy and says, ‘Hey, wouldn't you like to play together?' It just wasn't like that 20 years ago.""
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"The whole thing seems foreign to Solberg.""

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""I didn't go to a school where you could transfer," said Solberg, who played hoops at Lewistown. "I'm from a one-school town. I feel for the kids who already exist at the school, who might say ‘my spot is being taken away. I've worked hard all year, now somebody better comes and my spot is possibly gone.'""

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"Hays would only confirm the addition of Mahlum and Tinkle to his squad."

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""I don't know if there will be others or not," he said, adding this is not the first time transferring at the semester has happened."

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"Another source said as many as three more area players might transfer to Hellgate, including one more from Frenchtown and two from Missoula Sentinel, although some of them may wait until the end of the season or even the school year."

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"Matosich has seen the transfer rule work both ways. Last year, one of his former players (Connor Woodill) had a successful senior year after transferring to Hellgate. This year Matosich received a transfer (Jason Neibergs) from Big Sky. It's a trend that he doesn't like to see grow."

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""There's this thought that, at this moment things aren't going my way. But if I go over ‘here,' things can go a little bit better."

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""It's the old saying, the grass is greener on the other side. Well, it's really not. ... The thing I tell my guys is, struggling is a good thing. It's not a bad word. It really isn't. That's where you define yourself.""

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""You can have that legacy of being on the Dream Team or the legacy of being on the team that turned it around.""

 

 

MCPS: School board wrong on pay raise - letter to the editor by Rose Horton on March 17th, 2013

Click on the link below to read Rose Horton's letter to the editor to the Missoulian regarding Superintendent Apostle's pay raise.  The letter was printed on Sunday March 17th, 2013.

MCPS: School board wrong on pay raise

Trustee Jim Sadler commented with information on the funding of the raise is included in the comments section at the end of the article.


msw agrees with Rose's opinion of the school district and thanks her for writing her letter.

Her letter mentions the school closures that happened under the last superintendent. Our family was a victim of these closures. Rattlesnake Middle School, Prescott School, and Mt. Jumbo School were closed, all schools in the northeast corner of Missoula. There were actually three schools that were closed, in 2004, not two as Rose mentioned. I can see how one would only mention two as Rattlesnake Middle School is now Rattlesnake Elementary.

After traveling out to Mt. Jumbo for K-3 and attending Prescott School my child was then able to finally walk to the neighborhood school a couple blocks away as did his siblings before him. After only a 48 day period Rattlesnake Middle School was closed. Words cannot describe the devastation that was felt by not only our family but many others. This betrayal by malevolent school board members will most likely be felt for a lifetime.

Mt. Jumbo was a nice school; however, it was a 2 mile trip to get there. Besides it was built to serve the East Missoula student population, not the Rattlesnake area's children.  And Prescott School in the lower Rattlesnake was a WONDERFUL school (see sister blog prescottschoolmissoula.blogspot.com). A responsible Trustee suggested that the district create a K-8 system in the northeast corner of Missoula as it would have been less radical than the recommended closures.  I would not have minded if a middle school was relocated there for the Rattlesnake children. But to bus all 6-8 grade children on the north side of our city to Washington and C.S. Porter middle schools was a reckless, irresponsible, and cruel decision. The cost of these closures was not figured out ahead of the decision. Just one example of the ramifications of the closure which has to do with funds; The removal of all the state of the art science equipment from the science room at RMS was approximately $10,000!! This information was requested by a citizen and cost about $85.000 to process the request by the district. Not even the playground equipment at Rattlesnake was included in closure costs 

Can one imagine the true costs of the closures when costs such as the above are considered?! I just recently found out that the district filled in the band pit in the band room at Rattlesnake School - how much did this cost? 

Perhaps some citizens are unaware that the district just built a modular at Rattlesnake School due to overcrowding - But did NOT discuss re-opening Prescott - which is located just down the road. In fact, the principal at Rattlesnake told a citizen that opening Mt. Jumbo and/or Prescott School was not an option when discussing the overcrowding issue. Who told him this?

I am thinking that real troubles for MCPS in regard to facilities began when Missoula joined other cities and transformed our neighborhood K-8 school system into an elementary and middle school model back in 1981-82 I believe.
But in more recent years, Superintendent Vagner (sp?) started the leasing of our public schools to a private school; St. Josephs lease of Roosevelt in the late '90's. I have heard that she was once a nun. In my opinion this would have been a conflict of interest for her to be involved in this transaction.

Then Superintendent Clark came onto the scene in 2002. He caused more harm to our school infrastructure by closing the schools mentioned above and also selling Roosevelt. It was no secret that he also attempted to close Hellgate High School. During the 2004 closures a parent asked Clark what his plans were for Hellgate High School. He said, "My plan is to close Hellgate." I'm not sure how Hellgate slipped from the grasp of Clark; however, I'm glad it did.

When I read that Superintendent Clark was retiring I shouted for joy. Perhaps my problems would go away (somewhat). But the joy lasted less than a minute because I knew who was on the Board and that the misery would continue.

There was some hope that a new superintendent could come in and help to clean up the messes of Vagner and Clark. We all know now that this was not meant to be as there has been no cleaning up but more messes.

As Rose pointed out these Trustees are clueless about why we the public are upset over the superintendent raise and the lack of supplies for the district among other concerns.

There is no hope for them - if they cannot understand the problems we have now they need to be voted out of office as soon as possible.

For now we need to vote AGAINST REHBEIN, TOTH, BIXLER, AND LEMM THIS MAY.

Thank you again to Rose (the name of my great-grandmother) for writing her letter. 

edited on March 23, 2013 

I

Ethics investigation closed

Click on the link below to read an article in the Missoula Independent regarding Missoula County Public Schools School Board Trustee, Drake Lemm who serves the Lolo district.


Ethics investigation closed: School Board

Below is a quote from the article -

"School Board Trustee Drake Lemm, through his company Drake Lemm Construction, was hired by district Superintendent Jim Clark to build an addition to his garage, and in September 2006 Chief Civil Deputy County Attorney Mike Sehestedt said he was examining whether the project, estimated to cost about $4,400, constituted a “substantial financial transaction.”"
 

Note:  The computer msw is working on is causing problems - msw will attempt to fix mistakes in this post at a later date.

School Board Shenanigans

School Board Shenanigans: Kissing up to the boss

A long absence from posting on missoula schools watchdog blog!

It's been since December since missoula schools watchdog has entered a post!

The reason for this long absence is the reason for many things in life - msw has been so busy with family activities and responsibilities in addition to many demands created by the business world and having a job.

msw has been keeping up with all the news coverage of Superintendent Alex Apostle's raise.  msw's opinion - THE RAISE WAS OUT OF LINE!!  (msw plans to post some pictures of the February Board Meeting)  However, with the Board that is currently in place this was completely predictable. These trustees have upped this position's salary for years.

msw plans to resume posting opinions and articles in the near future and hopefully will be able to continue with fewer breaks as there seems to be a lot to cover with MCPS.  And school board elections are coming up in May!

Thank you to all the other watchdogs and many many citizens that have come forward to express their concern regarding the raise and other issues - as we all know there are many problems with MCPS.

In closing, I would like to thank Yetta Stein, the Hellgate student who along with her friends got a petition going against the raise.  She was an inspiration to msw and so many other Missoulians.