School board approves budget layoffs
Whitefish Pilot
Three teachers and two other school personnel will lose their jobs as the Whitefish School District moves to reduce its workforce to meet a shrinking student population.
But Matt Holloway, a popular high school English teacher who had attracted wide support from students and parents and who was not tenured, was saved at the last minute when another high school English teacher chose to retire.
Mark Duff, who has taught at Whitefish High School for 39 1/2 years, has announced he will retire at the end of this school year. Duff will return next year to teach two-sevenths time.
Non-tenured teachers with less than three years with the school district who will be laid off include high school physical education teacher and boys basketball coach Eric Stang, middle school special education teacher Jill Myhre and elementary school enrichment and art teacher Elizabeth Hanson. Also leaving will be high school computer aid Brigid Smith and middle school secretary Jill Joy.
The board also decided to no longer have Stang serve as the basketball coach. House said that wasn’t based on school district policy but the board’s choice.
Several resignations will also help the school district reduce its manpower. High school science teacher Reed Kuennen has announced her retirement so she can take a job with the Forest Service. Kuennen was also the National Honor Society co-advisor and the junior class prom advisor. High school science teacher Susan Ruffatto will move from half-time to full-time to help fill Kuennen’s schedule.
Meghan McMahon, a middle school resource teacher, is leaving because she wants to return to her hometown of Helena. Jim Thormahlen, a high school counselor, retired last year but was brought back for a year to help with programming. Middle school crossing guards Chrysa Powers and Rochelle MacArthur also announced their resignations.
School superintendent Jerry House said it wouldn’t matter if the school district got additional funding from a mill levy or the federal stimulus bill — there aren’t enough students to justify that many teachers and staff.
“State funding is not the issue,” he said. “We don’t have the class size.”
The school district projects a $180,000 shortfall in the elementary school district budget and a $280,000 deficit in the high school district next year.
State school funding is based on student numbers from the prior year, and Whitefish High School lost 81 students this year. The freshmen class dropped from 147 to 124, sophomores dropped from 146 to 123, juniors dropped from 140 to 126, and seniors dropped from 147 to 126.
The lost funding for those 81 students, combined with state school aid that doesn’t keep pace with inflation and the need to honor negotiated staff contracts, prompted the current budget problem, House said.
The 81 students left the school district for various reasons, House explained, including switching to Glacier or Columbia Falls high schools, moving out of the area or dropping out. He noted that last year’s graduating class had 151 students, while the incoming freshmen class last fall was only 126.
Some parents say the new Glacier High School in Kalispell, completed about a year before voters turned down a $22 million bond election for a major remodel of Whitefish High School, has drawn away the bulk of the missing students.