Havre's going back to school

Havre public school students will fill the hallways and classrooms of the five city schools for the first time this year Aug. 30.

District superintendent Andy Carlson said he is so excited about the new year that, up until recently, he had been telling people school started Aug. 26.

"That's a Saturday," he said, laughing. "There will be no school Aug. 26."

At least one new teacher has been hired in each of city's public schools. Twelve total new teachers, including new band teachers at Havre High and Havre Middle, will be educating and cultivating Havre's young minds.

This year is not a typical year. In addition to another record low enrollment year - 1,786 students -  the district will have to work with and around a budget that has been battered and decimated by two recent legislative bills.

House Bill 647 and Senate Bill 261, the full impact of the latter being announced just weeks ago, will make things significantly tighter, Carlson said. The guaranteed tax base via state taxes is gone as a result of HB 647, a cut that will be passed onto local taxpayers by legislative decision. November will reveal additional taxes to local taxpayers.

Carlson said the legislators who voted for HB 647 were probably not aware of what it would do to schools.

"I don't think they fully comprehend the impact it would have on the local districts," he said.

As for SB 261, Carlson said, there was no way to plan for it.

"Our margin for error is not $100,000," he said. "We plan as well, but I can tell you this - I don't plan to have $100,00 removed from the budget a month before the school year begins.

"This is my perspective. You can't take $100,00 away from us going into the school year and not have an impact what we do," he said. "I don't budget with the idea that we're going to have even $20,000 taken away."

The goal, going into the school year, is two-fold, how to balance a significantly lower budget without letting those efforts affect the classrooms or digging into reserves.

"Personnel," he said, "is the number one thing that we're protecting."

Carlson said he views educators as the backbone of education and the secret to the district's success. As the superintendent of the largest district in the area, he said, he keeps in touch with all nearby superintendents as they collaborate to meet each other's needs in an area rife with a scarcity of qualified educators.

"If we've gone through our rounds - the board's approved that person that we hired and I have two applications that I thought were pretty decent - I'm definitely going to tell them," he said. "I would hope they do the same for us."

In addition to the new teachers this year, new response protocols will be in place.

"What we're going to try to do is have the best possible protocols to protect our students and staff," he said.

Last year, a handful of scares occurred that prompted school lock downs. Carlson said one of the goals for those situations will be a better-trained and informed staff. Staff will be receiving training Aug. 29 and 30, he said. The goal is for teachers and administrators, "to have a greater sense of what's going on in the school."

As for social media and the outside chatter that accompanies school lockdowns and other crisis, Carlson said, it would be a hopeless task to try and control that.

"I'm never going to be able to keep students and staff safe and, at the same time, communicate in an effective matter to stop all the other chatter that's going on out there," he said.

In addition to the changes brought on by social media - not just when it comes to emergency situations, but in the classrooms as well - other challenges includes the diversity of backgrounds students bring to the classroom, Carlson said.

"Everything is changing," he said. "It's the number of influences that teachers have to prep for every single day in their classroom."

Related challenges include the level of knowledge different students bring, and the amount of students who drop off or come in at various times during the school year, he said. For the teacher, whose goal is to build relationships, all those scenarios make building those relationships and educating those children more difficult.

To deal with the changes, Carlson said, it's important to have - again - trained staff. Havre, he said, has a reputation for having quality staff. It is the reason bigger districts keep "picking off" Havre educators, he added.

"When I travel," he said, "there is an outside perception that we're pretty well-thought-of."

Sure, he said, procedures, systems and protocols matter, but not as much as people.

"It starts with teachers in the classrooms building relationships," he said.

The teacher, not tests, he said, should be the most important indicator of academic success in the classroom. Carlson said he does not dismiss testing, but added, "Tests don't tell you anything about your kid."

The red tape from the federal and state level has increased tenfold, he said, adding this is his opinion and does not represent that of anyone else in the district. The Every Child Succeeds Acts was supposed to hand over more local control. However, he said he does not see how that has happened.

"I can't tell the difference between the amount of reporting I had to do two years ago and now," he said. "What we report to the state and the federal government, in my opinion, is not an accurate description of what's happening in the classroom."

Albeit budget cuts, regulations and preparation for scary situations, the advent of school season is at the doorstep, and that made Carlson smile.

When asked what he is he most excited about this year, he said, "That's an easy one," he said. "Getting everyone back,"

"The summer gets long, it gets boring," he said. "It's a people business. That's what you enjoy - you enjoy being around people."

New Havre school teachers

Highland Park Early Primary School

• Lanaia Lewis - Special Education

• Jennifer Mansfield – First Grade

Lincoln-McKinley Primary School

• Patricia Ferguson - Second Grade

Sunnyside Intermediate School

• Jennifer Fitch - Fourth Grade

• Kodey Hansen - Fourth Grade

• Shannon Marshall - Fourth Grade

Havre Middle School

• Megan Lewis - Math

• Jarred Taylor - Band

Havre High School

• Myles Laird – Special Education

• Michael Hoffman - Special Education

• Travis Aline - History

• Zachary Paulus - Band