FLORENCE — The Florence-Carlton School District School Board voted in January to move the district to a four-day school week. And with that decision, some parents in the district have raised great concern over the move.
The concern of the parents over the move to a four-day school week is that it will place a burden on working parents, who will now have to find childcare on Fridays.
These concerns were enough for Jason Breckenridge, a parent in the district, to file a lawsuit against the school board and school district.
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“[A]ll we're asking is to stop, pause, let's do this right. Let's look at some of these other communities that have done it,” said Virginia Mahn, a parent in the school district.
Breckenridge’s lawsuit against the school district and board alleges that the district and board violated several statutes of Montana law — violating open meeting laws, the Montana Public Records Act and bad faith conduct and manipulation of public participation.
Florence-Carlton School District School Board chairman Matthew Roth denies those allegations, stating that the decision had been years in the making and that the public had the opportunity to weigh in.
“[T]he process has been approved. We had public comment. We had surveys. Again, it has been talked about for 16 years in this community through various boards. All the new board members that have been here from board members way before our time. The decision was made, I believe, at the January board meeting to go with the four-day school week. And that process has been ongoing for the last few months,” said Roth.
The Breckenridge family and Virginia Mahn presented their grievance arguments to the school board on Tuesday night, stating that the school board did not provide proper notice of the move to a four-day week as well as not involving the community during the decision-making process.
“[T]hey’ve done one survey. The survey, as Jason said, was sent out to only emails that are associated with the school. It was sent out at the very end of December and everybody had until January 6 to put their responses in. And on January 11 is when they transitioned to adopt,” said Megan Breckenridge, a parent in the school district.
Surveys were sent to those who had an email associated with the school district, as well as teachers.
Breckenridge also alleges that the board did not give proper notice of the decision to vote on the move to a four-day week.
On the agenda, the vote to move to a four-day school week was titled “Approval or a 4-Day Calendar or 5-Day Calendar”. And according to the school board, the agenda with the vote on it, was posted properly.
“Our agendas are posted 48 hours before complying with public meeting laws. We've done that forever. We understand the laws that we have to comply with that. Again, we're a small community. The agenda is posted on the front door of the district office. The agenda is posted at the IGA, which is our local grocery store. And the agenda is posted at the post office. We've recently, in the last probably six months, if not longer, have started posting it on the website as well, for those that may not make it to those central locations in our city,” explained Roth.
The district is scheduled to move to the four-day week this coming fall, but the lawsuit that Breckenridge filed calls for injunctive relief to pause the decision.
As the lawsuit plays out, we will be sure to keep you updated.
