School District 6 enrollment comparable to last year

By JOE SOVA

Hungry Horse News

Based on the report by Superintendent Michael Nicosia during Monday night’s regular meeting of the board of trustees, enrollment in Columbia Falls School District 6 is holding its own — compared to the start of the 2006-07 school year.

Nicosia told trustees that kindergarten- through 12th-grade enrollment as of this week was 2,446, which is just 12 fewer students than at the same time last year. The number was exactly the same as district enrollment in early September of 2005. In September of 2003, there were 2,512 students in the district.

The number of high school students this week was 865, just three off the mark of a year ago. According to Nicosia, the key class is 12th grade. That number is 205, compared to 187 a year ago in early September. The 205 number includes the Learning Center.

“We’ll see what our holding power is going to be,” Nicosia told trustees, and he suggested that the district keep an eye on the senior class numbers. “We have to get a feel for where these kids are going.”

In saying that, he cautioned that there could be a drop in the number of senior students due to several factors, namely early graduation, transfers to other schools or drop-out.

Nicosia said District 6 lost a few students to the new Glacier High School.

“I thought it was going to affect us more,” he said.

High school principal Alan Robbins said the high school enrollment break for Class A schools is 825. There can be a 10 percent variance to that number in terms of classification. So Columbia Falls High School remains near the top of the Class A ranks in terms of enrollment, with numbers very similar to Belgrade High School. There is a gap between those two and the A schools with the next highest enrollment.

“Columbia Falls and Belgrade are in kind of a class of their own,” Nicosia said.

Nicosia is hoping that the District 6 secondary school enrollment will hold steady.

“You don’t want to lose students between October and February,” he said, “and the Learning Center has helped us.”

ADM, or average daily membership, numbers are considered during the winter — when school funding for the next academic year is determined.

Significant changes show that the number of fifth graders at Ruder Elementary is up by 24 students over last year. There were 100 kindergarten students at Glacier Gateway early this week. In the K-5 evaluation, there are 216 fifth graders, a jump by 50 from the start of the previous school year.

Other board business

Twelve of the 15 new teachers in School District 6 were introduced to trustees during Monday night’s board meeting. They included one at the high school, two at the junior high and 12 at elementary schools — six at Glacier Gateway and three each at Ruder and Canyon. One of them, Tyler Jones, splits his time between Canyon Elementary and the high school.

The board approved a travel request by teacher Karen Ulmer to allow 20 members of the Columbians jazz band to attend a festival May 1-5 in New York City. The students are paying for most of their own expenses, mostly through fundraising activities. The cost is $1,500 per band member, of which $1,100 must be raised to go along with $400 that they each provide.

Boys and Girls Club Director Alan Sempf reported to trustees, thanking the board for support of the organization over the last five years through the use of district facilities. He said the Club is renovating the former Episcopal Church across from Glacier Gateway Elementary and a fundraising effort continues.

“It’s a big project and it will all come together,” Sempf said.

Trustees voted to approve an easement agreement with the City of Columbia Falls for the placement of two park benches at the bike path near the junior high school. The benches have already been installed by the City.

Also Monday, Nicosia gave trustees a Montana Quality Education Coalition (MQEC) update. He told trustees that he would be attending a state board meeting Tuesday and the pending lawsuit about changes — that have not occurred and that would provide more money for education in Montana — would be discussed.

“We, as a school district, don’t like where this is going,” Nicosia said. “We’ve been doing without for so long that we don’t know what we’re doing without.”

The funding for education in District 6, as well as the rest of the state, is not getting any brighter. Nicosia said that the forecast is for a reduction in funding for District 6 of from $300,000 to $500,000 next year.

In personnel business, trustees accepted four resignations and approved seven hiring recommendations for coaching positions. The resignations: Jaimie Wilson, Glacier Gateway kindergarten paraeducator; LaVonne West, Canyon Elementary kindergarten paraeducator; and Kelsey Ronish and Susie Barth, junior high volleyball coaches.

The hirings: Kelly Houle, eighth grade football coach; Brent Lachenmaier and Brad Parker, seventh grade football coaches; Janet Summerscales, junior high cross country coach; and Josie Brown, Kent Blair and Sue Berube, junior high volleyball coaches.