Trustee candidate reflects on election

Now that the May election season is behind us, I wanted to take a moment to thank the nearly 1,200 voters who supported me in the election for the Kalispell Public Schools board of education.

During the campaign I met many wonderful students, faculty and staff who were very encouraging of my quest to serve on the school board – and most folks were willing to overlook the fact that my wife and I are relatively new to Kalispell. I think that the fact that I had served on a school board in California for 20 years, and had spent my entire professional life in public education, were enough to compensate for the fact that I wasn’t a born and bred Montanan.

My sons were in school during my first stint as a school board member, and now that I have grandchildren in the Kalispell Public Schools, I wanted to find an opportunity to bring my experience to my new stake in the future of this community.

The other candidates were superb in their background and experience, and I wanted to assure the community that my own judgement is that the district is in great hands. At the last school board meeting I attended, I was very impressed with the dedication and commitment of the current board and administration. They definitely have the best interests of the students in their trust very much in mind, and have a strong connection and understanding of our community.

But, like most school districts in this state and nation, there are areas that will always need attention. After several years, we’re building a new school, and careful management of that process will be necessary in order to safeguard the expenditure of tax dollars our community has voted to provide for that construction; there are other ongoing infrastructure needs that have to be addressed, made even harder by the Legislature’s failure once again to pass a badly needed infrastructure bill. I might add that I was not persuaded by our local legislators’ rather defensive explanations about why the infrastructure package did not pass. But, that is a topic for another time.

The community also needs to know that the Legislature has created a shell game in the appropriation of funds for the public schools in Montana. I’ve seen it all before in my career, and listening to the presentations at the school-board meeting, it’s clear that the school district is once again left holding the bag, and trying to explain why budgets are tight when promises from Helena are not kept and resolution has to wait until the next session. Local folks will blame the school board, which will be patently unfair.

Finally, the only trouble spot I saw that is in the hands of the school board and administration has to do will the updating of curricular materials. At the last school board meeting I attended, the board adopted some new math materials and appropriated the funds to pay for them. This is great, and I’m guessing that specific funds may have been appropriated to do so. But, during the board meeting a retiring teacher made an impassioned plea not to overlook the fact that many social-studies materials are hopelessly out of date, and haven’t been renewed in years. This was quite troubling to some members of the board, and the board president made the surprising comment that “we wouldn’t know about this sort of thing unless people come to the board and tell us.” This was, I’m sure, an awkward moment for the superintendent and his staff, and even more surprising was the fact that no other teachers in the room backed her up. This issue bears watching.

Again, I am grateful for the support I received in our community, and although I was not successful, I was very impressed with the support our public schools in Kalispell receive.

Plotkin is a resident of Kalispell.