KALISPELL — A high school levy will be formally presented to the Kalispell School Board next week to be approved and put on the ballot for this coming spring.
“We’re graduating kids this spring that have gone through our entire system without a high school levy being passed in our community, so this is a big deal,” said Kalispell School District Superintendent Matt Jensen.
Kalispell voters have not passed a high school district levy since 2007. Jensen said the repercussions are building.
“This is really plain and simple; reduction of staff means reduction in opportunities for our kids and that’s why this election is such high stakes.”
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Jensen said the school district will be forced to cut 21 full-time positions if a high school levy is not passed this spring. Combined, he said the high school and elementary districts are facing a $3 million budget deficit.
“When you start looking at a levy that hasn’t passed since 2007, there’s been a lot of cuts since 2007 and we’re as thin as we can be across all of our departments, across all of our admin positions.”
Jensen said Kalispell Public Schools currently receives the lowest amount of local funding on a per-student basis compared to every other AA high school district in Montana.
“Two other districts are at 96% and the other districts are at 100% funding, so with our taxpayers, we’re looking at we’re funding our schools at 90% comparatively to the other districts, you know we want the same opportunity, and we want the same opportunity for our kids in our community as they are getting across the state.”
Along with staff layoffs, Jensen said the district will see cuts to career and community pathway programs, larger classroom sizes and teacher reassignments if the levy fails once again.
“And people are passionate about it, I’m passionate about it, people matter, our programming matters, and so it’s on one hand disappointing to have some conversations about our current reality and on the other hand it’s super exciting to look forward to where we are going,” said Jensen.
The proposed high school levy will be presented to the Kalispell School Board on Jan. 28.
