Malta School Board Recap

The Malta School Board addressed a few topics in their meeting on Wednesday, October 10, including their lack of qualified substitute teachers and contracts to new extracurricular coaches.

Mendy Estill was named the new Assistant High School Speech and Drama coach. The Boys Middle School coaching jobs went to Grant Messerly and Zach Handley. The Middle School Builder’s Club position went to Katharine Webb.

According to Superintendent Kris Kuehn, the Malta Public School District is going to look for qualified substitute teachers.

“We have kind of warned our faculty that it is a possibility that on those days that we have gotten to 12 substitutes that not everyone is going to get leave,” Kuehn said. “The principals and I are going to sit down and talk about some strategies to maybe solicit some substitutes.”

In the Administrative Reports, Malta Middle School Principal Shawn Bleth announced that the school has gone from volleyball season to girls’ basketball season last week.

“We went right from volleyball on Saturday to basketball on Monday, so they are busy and back at it again,” Bleth said.

According to Bleth, there are 21 girls participating in girls’ basketball.

“That’s a little higher than we have had in the past, so that’s good,” Bleth said.

The group participated in the Poplar Jamboree on Saturday, October 13.

He also announced that the MMS seventh and eighth-grade band organized a Lunch Concert because the band instructor Erik Engebretson felt the program needed the event.

“Mr. E felt that for the seventh and eighth-grade band in particular and other groups as well that waiting for the Christmas Concert is too long to wait,” Bleth said.

The 20-minute concert, which was held on Tuesday, October 16, at 12:15 p.m., was the first of its kind for the middle school group. Lunch was served after by the seventh grade SES group and its instructor Becky Bruce.

If it was an event that is deemed successful, it could be done each trimester with different groups at Malta Middle School.

Bleth also mentioned that Malta Middle School and Malta Elementary would like to update their math curriculum to a program that would have continuous progress under the same program from first to eighth grade.

Malta Elementary School Principal Cadence Wipplinger announced that the school has welcomed two new students, one second-grader and one fifth-grader. The class sizes for second and fifth grade now sit at 44 students each and are tied for the largest classes at the school.

“Those teachers are doing an awesome job,” Wipplinger said of the second and fifth-grade teachers.

Wipplinger announced that the Little M-ettes Volleyball team have completed their games and that Little Mustang Football has a game coming up.

The school is planning to hold a fire safety session this week.

Wipplinger also announced that she and Malta Music teacher Nancy Murdock will be taking on the responsibility of putting on the Veteran’s Day Assembly on Wednesday, November 21, at 2:30 p.m.

“Everyone that has done it has retired or has left,” Wipplinger said. “It is definitely something that I care a lot about, so we have come up with a whole script. We got a hold of the Color Guard and we are doing some pretty interesting stuff. The fifth graders are actually going to be speaking from cards and presenting things on what Veteran’s Day is.”

Malta High School Principal Scott King announced that Malta High School participated in the annual College Application Week, a week in which students can apply to one college within the state of Montana, free of charge.

Mrs. Bruce talked about the progress of Malta High School’s Farm to School project. According to Bruce, the project has not only yielded produce but enough for the school to hold a corn sale in which the school sold 40-50 dozen ears of corn. The sale netted the school $206. The produce has become the topic of discussion for many students in the school’s cafeteria.

“Kids are talking about vegetables and it’s kind of cool,” Bruce said.

MHS also applied for and was rewarded a $4,000 Farm to School Implementation Grant.