Community tells district to keep school open

Parents, staff and friends of Canyon Elementary don't want to see their school close.

That was the message the School District 6 Board and Superintendent Michael Nicosia heard during a public meeting Wednesday, Jan. 27, at the school in Hungry Horse.

"The most important thing is how we educate our students," said one woman. "Once you remove students from the Canyon it will be difficult for parents to participate in their education."

One parent said her family bought a house in Hungry Horse because of the school.

"I think if you close this school down, you'll lose young people coming here," she said. "This is more than a monetary issue."

Facing a half-million-dollar projected budget shortfall in the district next school year, the board of trustees recently began looking at closing Canyon Elementary. The board held two public hearings last week to get input from the community.

"We have a situation where we are out of balance (in the projected budget)," boardchair Jill Rocksund said. "We don't want to close this school. We will do everything we can do to keep it here."

Closing Canyon Elementary and busing its 92 students to Glacier Gateway and Ruder in Columbia Falls is one of the options for making up the shortfall.

Canyon's enrollment has continued to drop since the early 1990s. The school costs almost $1 million to operate, or about $10,000 per student. Compared to the roughly $6,000 per student to operate Glacier Gateway and Ruder, which have higher enrollment.

"Enrollment in Canyon Elementary is about a half million dollars short of what we need to operate this building," Nicosia said.

School funding is based largely on enrollment numbers. As enrollment drops, so does state funding. School officials don't expect that to change anytime soon, which means budgets could continue to get smaller.

"It's not just a one-year thing," Nicosia. "This is a disaster. This is going to continue for I don't know how long. If this was one year, we wouldn't be talking about this."

One suggestion Wednesday was to bus students from Columbia Falls to Canyon to make up for the lower enrollment numbers.

"We have one pool of money for all those students," Nicosia said. "If we have five buildings or one, the reality is that we have the same amount of money."

If students are moved from Canyon to Columbia Falls, they can be absorbed, but if students are brought to Canyon, staff would have to be added, noted Nicosia. Only one extra teacher would be needed from those already on staff at Glacier Gateway and Ruder to handle the additional Canyon students.

"Personnel will be cut, and that's where the savings comes from," Nicosia said. Some of the cuts could come through retirement and attrition.

Nicosia estimates that closing Canyon could save the district $900,000. Plans do not include selling the building.

State Rep. Dee Brown, a former Canyon teacher, told the board that Montana law says that a school can only be closed if it's in the best interest of the children.

"I think we can look at this budget with a fine-tooth comb," she said. "We are concerned about our school."

District 6 could ask voters to approve a mill levy, but because of a cap on the budget, the most a levy could add to the budget is $56,000. The minimum and maximum amount of money the district can have in its budget is set based on enrollment numbers.

That cap also plays into the money generated by property taxes that is used for school funding.

Nicosia said he is often asked if taxes keep rising, how come the school continues to complain about not having any money.

"Taxes on homeowners went up significantly because taxes went down on business owners," he said. "At one time the top taxpayers (in business' paid 50 percent of the taxes. Now they pay 20 percent."

The state Legislature has given tax breaks to businesses, which means property owners pay more and schools still receive the same amount of money, he said.

According to figures presented at the meeting, the state support per student for 2009 remains below the 1991 inflation adjust level. In 1991 schools received $2,665 per student, while in 2009 they received $2,487.

Some in attendance at the meeting said the district is unfairly placing the burden of cost-cutting solely on Canyon Elementary.

"We need to make this more of a district-wide issue because this is a district-wide issue," said one woman.

If Canyon remains open, that could mean cuts to services at all schools. One elective at the junior high would likely be cut. Several paraeducator and teaching positions would also be eliminated from the elementary and junior high schools.

Linda Hopkins, a second grade teacher at Canyon, said she and other teachers understand the challenges facing the school board, but also don't want to see their school close.

"I love this school," she said.