Page 10 - Flathead Beacon // 9.2.15

NEWS
As School Year Begins, Administrators Focus on Facility Needs Bigfork voters to decide bond request for high school upgrades; Kalispell to review options for new school
BY DILLON TABISH OF THE BEACON
Nearly 16,000 students are settling into classrooms across Flathead County this week as the new school year commences.
In Kalispell, schools are once again bustling with young students as administrators and staff continue a community dialogue about facility needs.
According to preliminary enrollment figures, Kalis- pell welcomed 2,104 students to kindergarten through fifth grade, 118 more than a year ago. Students were still being enrolled in the days leading up to the start of school, especially in the younger grades.
“That is where we have the most constraint. We just don’t have any room. We’re bursting,” Kalispell Public Schools Superintendent Mark Flatau said.
Kalispell Middle School, the largest in the state, had 1,040 students entering the first day of school, 30 more than a year ago, Flatau said. The high school district, encompassing Glacier, Flathead and Linderman Educa- tion Center, had 2,836 students, 36 students more than a year ago.
To further address the district’s facility needs and
the possible development of a new school site, Kalispell administrators are hosting a second community meet- ing Sept. 2 at 6 p.m. inside the library at Edgerton Ele- mentary. At a previous meeting in June, community members and staff discussed several building options, including a new elementary school on the district’s property on Airport Road.
Flatau said this latest meeting would include a time- table for when that could happen.
“We’re forced into a fast track for that new facility. We just don’t have any room anywhere,” he said. “We’ve got to get that built.”
Bigfork is involved in a similar conversation that is further along than Kalispell.
The school board has approved a bond request for $14 million to redevelop the high school with eight new classrooms and update other outdated space. An esti- mated 24,000 square feet of new space would be built onto the existing building to address rising enrollment.
Voters in Bigfork High School District #38, which encompasses the unincorporated county communities between Creston and Condon, will settle the referen- dum through mail-in ballots.
Ballots will be sent in the coming weeks and are due back by Oct. 9.
If voters approve the bond, property taxes for a home valued at $200,000 would increase by roughly $70 annu- ally, according to school district estimates.
Superintendent Matt Jensen said the district has led several community tours of the facility, showing the needs that should be addressed.
“We’re trying to spread awareness and explain that the heart of the plan is adding eight new classrooms and those will have an emphasis on math and science rooms and labs,” he said.
Jensen said he is confident that the community understands the district’s needs.
An independent site assessment last year found structural issues and growing issues throughout the campus, including more classroom space.
“I feel better every time I talk to somebody who wants to take a tour. The building speaks for itself,” he said.
The last major upgrade of the high school was in the
1960s.
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of Historic Places; and the government’s intent to preserve the site “as a historic part of the resort.”
The appeals court agreed, stating the Forest Service’s permit authorization did not constitute an endorsement of religion, and that “the Establishment Clause does not compel the government to purge from the public sphere all that in any way par- takes of the religious.”
The Knights of Columbus put up the statue to memorialize soldiers who died while fighting during World War II. The returning veterans who built it were inspired by the mountain shrines and statues they saw during their service.
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Appeals Court Allows Big Mountain Jesus to Stay Three-judge panel agrees that statue does not violate the First Amendment
BY BEACON STAFF
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Aug. 31 that a six-foot-tall statue known as Big Mountain Jesus can remain on the section of Flathead National Forest at Whitefish Mountain Resort.
The panel of three judges ruled in favor of the U.S. Forest Service, stating that the statue does not violate the First Amendment.
The issue has made its way through the court system over the last several years. A lawyer representing the Free- dom From Religion Foundation asked for the statue to be removed from U.S. Forest Service property, claiming it violates the
constitutional prohibition on Congress making any law regarding an establish- ment of religion.
Lawyers at the Becket Fund for Reli- gious Liberty defended the memorial against the Wisconsin-based group.
A federal district judge in 2013 said the Flathead National Forest could reis- sue a 10-year permit for the statue that has stood along a ski run at the Whitefish Mountain Resort since 1954. The judge, Obama-appointee Dana Christensen, said no reasonable observer would con-
“Today’s decision rejects the idea that
history and the First Amendment ought clude the Forest Service was endors-
to be enemies,” said Eric Baxter, senior counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. “Freedom From Religion Foun- dation wanted to use the First Amend- ment to erase Big Mountain Jesus from memory, even though it is, as the Court recognized, a crucial part of the history of Montana. Thank goodness for common sense.”
ing Christianity by permitting a private party to place it on land it leases from the government.
The court ruled that the government identified secular rationales for its con- tinued authorization of the statue, includ- ing its cultural and historical significance for veterans, Montanans, and tourists; the statue’s inclusion in the National Register
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SEPTEMBER 2, 2015 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM