State lawmakers considered a bill Monday that would allow Montana residents to vote on expanding their elementary school districts into K-12 districts, potentially bringing big changes to how schools are organized in three areas.
Sen. Taylor Brown, R-Huntley, brought his bill before the Senate Education and Cultural Resources Committee on Monday. Vice Chair Mark Blasdel, R-Kalispell, allowed additional time for testimony in a three-hour-long hearing indicative of the passion on both sides of Senate Bill 170.
Advocating for local control, most representatives from the elementary school districts of East Helena, Hellgate and Lockwood testified in favor of the bill that would allow changing to K-12 districts. Brown said the bill would likely be exercised in those three districts where population growth has opened the discussion of school expansion.
Hellgate Elementary School District Superintendent Doug Reisig said if Hellgate were to move to its own K-12 district, its high school would have about 600 students.
In addition to the financial complications associated with splitting school districts, opponents argued that local control over smaller districts would not necessarily correlate with better education.
Jeff Cowee, a science and social studies teacher at Helena Middle School, said losing hundreds of students to a potential East Helena high school would force the existing Helena schools to cut extracurricular programs. The same fate would await any newly formed district, he said.
Two similar bills were brought before the 2013 Legislature. One bill failed on the Senate floor, and one in the House never made it out of committee.