Havre schools having accreditation issues

Havre Public Schools trustees during Tuesday’s board meeting discussed accreditation issues the district is having as well as a recent trip to a trauma sensitive school national conference in Seattle.

The district has educators working at Highland Park Early Primary School, Lincoln-McKinley Primary School, Havre Middle School as well as Havre High School who are lacking accreditation, district Superintendent Andy Carlson told school board trustees.

“We’re not the only ones,” Carlson said today, adding that the licensing requirements in Montana sometimes do more harm than good.

“I have a hard time with some of the licensing,” he said Tuesday night.

Carlson said one of the people lacking the proper accredidation, a counselor at Highland Park and Lincoln-McKinley, has a master’s degree and has been counseling for 11 years. That person has been recently enrolled in courses and will meet the required standards and be properly licensed.

Other reasons for accredtitation problems are a teacher who renewed after deadline — that too will be resolved, Carlson said — and an educator teaching special education at Havre Middle school without the proper accreditation. That teacher, Carlson said, has already been brought up to speed, and it’s only a matter of properly classifying them.

“We’ll get them classified,” Carlson said.

Two Havre Public Schools staff and one trustee attended the April 5 and 6 National Conference Kick-off, a trauma sensitive school conference, in Seattle, district Assistant Superintendent Craig Mueller told trustees. Havre was one of seven districts in the nation at the conference.

“One of the most beneficial aspects I came away with from the conference was the self-assessment,” Mueller said.

The trauma school program is a national pilot program intended to help school employees learn to identify trauma, learn how it impacts students and then use that knowledge as a tool to better educate students and provide calm and secure learning environments. The program was implemented after attention was brought to it by board trustee and Montana State University-Northern professor Curtis Smeby.

“How do we reach out to students who are struggling in certain areas?” Mueller asked. “I think it’s a great opportunity. I think Havre is ready.”