Proposed high school renovation unnecessary

The Inter Lake article on May 16 was about Bigfork High Schools $14 million expansion to do what? Lower the gym floor so they can host tournaments? Hide the buses and the bus maintenance building someplace else because it is not "natural" to see them around a school? Make a large commons area so visitors can see education happening? Improve the parking lot for what, tournament parking? Let me be clear. $14 million or more to make Bigfork High School look classy at a big cost to taxpayers who expect education to be improving, not rebuilding the sports arena! I doubt if you tax payers will let that happen.     

I survived six administrations in Bigfork after teaching there in the Industrial Arts department for 28 years. A couple of the administrations were actually very good. I watched the Malletta administration try to railroad the community into building Malletta University, as it was referred to at the time, for about $14 million too, and was going to hold 420 students many years ago, but the numbers have never come close. They tried to send all vocational classes to Kalispell and even had a couple of students trying to do that as an experiment and they had a serious accident on the way to Kalispell. When I retired my position was eliminated and they even cut the auto shop instructor to half time leaving a big vacuum in the vocational area.

When I see a tremendous levy for "wants" instead of "needs,” my reaction is to see how much sense it makes. This study for the expansion was made by the CTA Architects Engineers has cost $35,000. I can imagine what that money could  have done to rebuild the Industrial Art program there and other programs.  

What educational benefit is there to lowering the gym floor. Hundreds of my former Industrial Art students are professional carpenters, electricians, cabinet makers, and other trades people.  You probably know some of them. They are your sons or daughters, or some may have worked for you. Most of them first learned how to safely handle equipment and tools in the wood and auto shop in Bigfork. If I taught them just one thing-safety- it was worth the tax money spent on the shop, however much, much more was taught. I do not know one professional basketball or volleyball player who graduated from Bigfork and is a professional making a living from the sport.   A few get scholarships in sports but it takes an athlete, not a fancy gym and parking lot to do the job.  My point here is that if tax money is going to go into the school it needs to go for the educational areas, first, that will teach students how to become responsible employable individuals when they graduate. Sports is great and lots of fun, but unless I am off base, most parents are interested in their kids learning how to work for a living and be employable after high school. And most tax payers are interested in their contributions paying for  an education in the classroom, not playing games on the perfect floor of the gym. Also I have seen the gym floor many times and taught woodworking many years. It is sound and the finish can be done for many more years to come before it needs to be replaced. It just is not up to tournament status apparently. If it does need replacing 20 years down the road it still will not cost millions. I'd be happy to drill a few core samples of the wood in that floor to verify it's soundness. Balls will bounce just perfectly on it whether it is lowered or stays right where it is now. Perhaps the dream of having crowds of outsiders walking on it at the Olympic Spartan tournaments is the mindset and  finding a valid reason educationally to lower it cannot be found. 

The next thing on the list is the bus maintenance building and the buses.   How buses on school grounds look "unnatural" actually has me bewildered.   Yes, the buses make it look like a school is near by. And safety cited as a reason to move them from the middle of the school property is a weak reason to spend millions to move them.  In my 28 years there, I saw buses loading or unloading kids close to the entrances and no students were hit or injured by them.   Would it make sense to send the buses to a safe place, say at the post office or some place else, and have the students walk single file to school with a school officer so nobody would have to see those ugly orange buses? The bus situation is perfectly safe as is and the maintenance building is hidden behind the school on the east side of the grounds. Nobody sees it and most probably do not know it exists. I get a deep sense of suspicion that some in the community want a more expensive look to the school to fit their taste. Most of us do not have the extra dollars for the "right look,” but also most of us will do all we can if education is the real reason for a levy. My version of real reason is classrooms built, teachers hired, upgrading areas like the Science, Art, Music, Vocational areas, text books, computers, and things that are not just entertainment. When those areas are solid and have what they need then the wants and desires of the administration are understandable.   But lets not paint this study anything but a "want" at the cost of the taxpayers in the district.

Next is the "commons" area. Bigfork High school already has what is called the "foyer" which was made for kids to hang out in at lunch, etc. A "commons" area looks like a big expensive version to what is already in place.   The reasoning for a "commons area" is so visitors can see education in action instead of closed classrooms. First of all there are very, very few visitors at the school ever. Secondly , any person interested in observing a class can get permission to sit in if they want to, but that seldom ever happens. Again allowing visitors to observe education in action is a weak reason to build an expensive place for kids to gather. For years Principal Steve Racki and one assistant allowed kids in the foyer and gym at lunch so they did not have to sit in the halls and there were seldom problems. Some kids actually like sitting by each other in the halls talking and eating privately at lunch time. Kids took off their shoes to avoid harming the gym floor. The custodians had to clean it each day, but a large commons area would require the same care. This solution to use the foyer and gym was logical and cheap and just as viable today as it was a few years back. All solutions rub somebody wrong, but paying hundreds of dollars in taxes a year more rubs me wrong on this Agora plan. And remember the taxes go to the school for 20 years..it is not the $60 to $70 a year we are made to think about in the article..I suspect that figure will change substantially when reality sets in.....but after the 20 years we are still paying them and more....taxes do not go down ever on our property-EVER....trust me on that one. Better yet, check and see if it is really so.

My final problem with the Agora plan is the parking lot. It appears the parking lot needs to be bigger to accommodate the Olympic Spartan tournament goers.    Well for the number of students and faculty members there are plenty of parking places presently, and even for the sporting events. Again the dream of a few could be to turn this school into the Ancient Greek Spartan colosseum. I'm sorry, but there is no sound reasoning behind spending millions to revamp a totally functional school and parking lot that only needs to be looked at from the inside carefully and arranged to teach students so they can move to the next level of real life on this planet which unfortunately is an occupation that pays.  This way they will be able to pay taxes for the education of their kids and eventually they will even realize that getting an education is about studying and learning and hard work, and not about how impressive the building and grounds or the gym look.

So these are my thoughts about Agora and their $35,000 plan. If I remember correctly, the Malletta era spent about $45,000 on their plan trying to get the Bigfork University going.  Money down the drain!   Engineers know about how to construct buildings and charge big bucks, but unfortunately a building does not educate kids no matter what the configuration is or the size. It takes the proper amount of good teachers, classrooms that are not crowded, material to work with, administrators who spend time daily in classrooms to see how they can help improve a situation or learn from a teacher, a school board that is in tune with the public and not just one sector of it that rules the ship. I know Bigfork has good schools, both elementary and high school because I was there and saw it in operation. I also know politics are playing a big part in this scheme. The students I worked with for all of those years are in my thoughts constantly and I am so impressed by the things they have grown up to do. I know when I would hear about every individual being special and precious that it was and is true. So don't get me wrong with this article. I care about Bigfork Schools and all the kids past and present and support them, but this particular expansion is just too far out there for me to keep silent. I would surly support a levy that truly improves education there, just not this plan. 

— Les Saari, Retired Bigfork Industrial Education Instructor