Enrollment and special education discussed at school board meeting

At its meeting Tuesday, the Havre Public Schools Board of Trustees discussed enrollment numbers and received an update on the number of students with special education considerations as well as the schools’ policies for classifying such students.

Superintendent Craig Miller said the official count is about the same as the preliminary count, 1,729 students district wide, slightly higher than last year.

Havre Public Schools Director of Special Education and Federal Projects Karla Geda said the system has just more than 200 disabled students this year.

Geda provided trustees with a breakdown of the demographics of those students and explained an important recent change to how students are evaluated.

She said students identified as developmentally delayed used to be worked with and evaluated until they turned 6, after which it is determined whether they are to be put into a certain category of people with disabities.

She said Montana was among the only states to do this to students that young and it was recently determined by the state that the age at which students are reevaluated should be raised to 9.

Geda said the change helps schools by giving them more time to work with students and collect data on their performance so they can make more informed determinations about how best to handle their education.

Mueller also presented the second reading of a policy change recommended by the Montana School Boards Association that further explains how to handle off-site learning, proficiency-based learning and aggregate hours.

Mueller said the change allows greater flexibility to administrative teams to handle alternative learning methods and recommended the board grant its approval, which was given unanimously.

He also talked about a recent appearance he made at Montana Actors’ Theatre’s Death by Chocolate fundraiser this past weekend.

He said he’s happy to announce that MAT is partnering with Havre Public Schools to put on the musical play “Anastasia” this spring at Havre High School, and arrangements are being made to make that happen.

Mueller thanked Northern Montana Health Care for stepping up and sponsoring that play and MAT Executive Artistic Director Jay Pyette for all his work putting this together.

The next regular meeting of the HPS Board of Trustees will be Nov. 9. at 6:30 p.m.