Swan River Schools seeks trustees and school upgrades

Nobody filed for Swan River School District’s two vacant board of trustees positions in time for the filing deadline of March 26 due to lack of public notification of the vacancies. The board now has 60 days from the deadline to fill those vacancies, otherwise the county superintendent will appoint someone.

Ben Haag and Susan Hutz presented a letter of interest to the board during their meeting on April 17. However, the board decided to advertise the vacancies incase there might be additional community members interested in the positions.

“We’re grateful they are interested, but we need to put a notice in the newspaper so the Swan River community is fairly notified that these vacancies exist,” Peter Loyda, principal of Swan River School, said.

In other Swan River School District news, $35,000 from reserve funds will be used for computer upgrades and to provide new equipment for the classrooms. The board is also making adjustments to the school’s dress code policy and finishing upgrades to the building’s exterior lighting.

The majority of the reserve fund expenditures will go toward addressing the teachers’ wish lists for supplies such as smartboards to enhance their lessons.

The school’s goal is to eventually have smartboards in all of their classrooms.

This is the first time the school has used their reserve funds, but it is common practice for districts to use these funds for items not covered by the regular budget.

“It’s not for things that would just be nice to have, but things that would make a functional difference in providing education for students and to meet state standards,” Loyda said.

The board approved the purchase of 50 new hard drives to replace and upgrade all of their existing stand-alone hard drives at a cost of $10,500. This upgrade means every teacher and student will be using the same platform of databases, software and programs.

Currently, Swan River School’s computers are running on three different operating systems, Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7, which makes communication difficult within the building.

The upgrades will be purchased from the Office of Public Construction Warehouse, as in previous years. The warehouse receives donated computers from government offices and businesses around Helena and other parts of the state.

Loyda said, some of these computers are lightly used and only a couple years old.

“We have been able to upgrade our lab and make it run efficiently, it’s a wonderful program because otherwise we wouldn’t be able to afford the upgrading we would like,” Loyda said. “We can’t afford to get all new computers for the lab and school, however, this is the next best path we can do and we’re very excited about it.”

The board also had the first of three readings for the school’s new dress code policy at their meeting last week.

The current dress code is vague and open to interpretation, Loyda said, so the board is making revisions in the language to clarify the school’s expectations. According to Loyda parents and the school don’t always agree on what’s appropriate for school.

“With the changing fashions that are occurring in the stores, we sometimes have to adapt our language to meet the needs and redefine what’s appropriate to the educational setting,” Loyda said. “We appreciate people’s individuality, but they need to be reminded they are dressing for education. We set a foundation so that when they get a job someday they will have it embedded in them that there’s a certain way to dress for a professional setting.”

Loyda said it is the board’s intention to create a “happy medium” with their dress code policy revisions.

One of the final items discussed at the board’s meeting last week was the completion of the building’s exterior lighting upgrades.

The school was approved for a $9,800 grant through the Round-up-for-Safety program from Flathead Electric. The grant allocates funding up to $10,000.

These upgrades have revamped old lighting and added more lights to the school to keep the sidewalk and building visible at night. The only remaining upgrade left is to add two light poles in the east parking lot, which has to wait until summer when the water table has decreased.