Malta School Board hears new student numbers

The Malta School Board met for their final meeting of the summer last Wednesday night and among what they heard was the enrollment for three schools, a pay raise for substitutes and the promise of a district wide Facebook page to keep parents and students updated as to the goings on of the district.

During the administrator reports Malta Elementary School Principal Theodore Schye told the trustees that enrollment should be at about 15-to-20 more students at the school with a kindergarten class consisting of just under 40 students making this year’s enrolment numbers about 220 for the 2014-15 school year. Middle School Principal Shawn Bleth said that the school is expecting about 105 students this school year (see more about Malta Middle School changes on page 3A.) and High School Principal Scott King said that the school would have about 154 students this school year, up four students from last year.

Principal King also let the trustees know that the number of high school students who have signed-up for online classes has risen from last year following the announcement of an agreement with Montana State Northern for some dual credit classes. King said that for a fee of $180 students can earn one high school credit as well as three college credits from MSU Northern. He added that Digital Academy has also added dual credits of this sort.

“I think we are moving a little bit closer to that point where the Curriculum Committee and myself are going to have to sit down and really start to taking a look at adding the online credit as a requirement for graduation.” King added.

The courses cover many subjects including psychology, sociology and English and students will be online, at the high school, with MSU instructors during those classes.

Principal Bleth informed the school board trustees that the Middle School website has looked a bit mangled of late and chalked it up to a computer crash and said that it should be redesigned by the start of school. He also told the trustees that the schools will soon be launching a district wide Facebook page.

“It’s just another way to get more information out to people,” he said, adding that they will coincide with the website and Twitter feeds the schools already have in place.

The board of trustees approved a pay raise for both classified and non-classified substitute workers. The substitute teacher rate was raised to $11 an hour and non-classified positions was raised to $10 per hour.

Middle School Principal Bleth said that the schools will transfer from percentage grades to letter grades this year and Principal King reiterated that starting in the 2016 school year the Graduating Top 10 will change to the Top Eight and that AP classes will be weighed a little differently starting in the 2016 school year.

The Malta School Board also approved the purchase of a 58 passenger, 2008 school bus costing $19,500. The bus has 134,000 miles on the engine. The idea of purchasing a smaller, lower passenger bus was discussed at a special school board meeting two weeks ago but the cut-away type buses are so popular in the state of Montana right now that none worth buying were for sale by the time the Transportation Committee had a chance to search one out.

The new boiler in the elementary school is nearly completed and is surprisingly small, according to Kuehn. Principal Schye brought in a Zerox copy of the Phillips County News from January 25, 1951 which contained a picture showing students on the last day of school before Christmas Break of that year, a few months after the elementary school’s construction was completed. The new boiler replaces that original boiler which was installed over 62 years ago.

“If anybody questions if we got our monies worth out of that boiler, the answer is yes,” Schye said.

Near the conclusion of Wednesday night’s school board meeting, Superintendent Kuehn said he is excited to welcome the nine new teachers who will be on staff when school starts on Wednesday morning.

“Ready, set, go,” he said. “This is a different and exciting time here at Malta Schools. This place is going to have a little different flavor here this year with all of the new faculty we have and I’m looking forward to a great school year.”

The next Malta School Board meeting is set for 7 p.m. on Wednesday, September 10.