Layers of security work together to keep students safe at the front door to Target Range School, a K-8 district in west Missoula. There’s a system to page in visitors, cameras hanging overhead and doors with automatic locks.
The doors have flat metal bars across them that allow students to quickly push through. That’s especially important during an emergency like a fire or a shooting.
Those crash bars, as they’re called, are so old, Superintendent Jeff Crews says he can’t find replacement parts. He shows off new ones down the hall.
“These are the new crash bars, you can see,” Crews said. “Little bit different style to them, but, you know, we get parts for them.”
Replacing the bars on the front doors will cost about $15,000, Crews says. The school needs new security cameras, too. That would cost $50,000. Both projects are on the back burner now that Target Range voters rejected a quarter-million-dollar safety levy this spring.
“That’s the hard part, right? We’re dealing with a limited pot of money,” Crews said.
Crews says he doesn’t blame the voters, he knows many are buckling under high property taxes, and it’s hard to explain the convoluted way Montana pays for public schools. State and federal dollars cover the majority of what a school needs, but they don’t cover everything. Districts often have to ask voters to pay for safety upgrades.
Montana Quality Education Coalition director Doug Reisig says schools often pull money out of accounts meant for salaries and textbooks to cover safety expenses when levies fail.
“You rob Peter to pay Paul, but if you don’t have the safety levy passed, you can’t even rob Peter, because Peter doesn’t exist,” Reisig said.
Target Range isn’t alone. The Montana School Boards Association reports fewer than half of levies on the ballot this year passed.
One school figuring out the ramifications of a failed levy is Hellgate Elementary, another K-8 district across town from Target Range. Superintendent Molly Blakely stands on a concrete pad that looks like a giant fist smashed into it. It’s caused three workers’ compensation claims and counting. Those claims cost the district more than the estimated $16,000 price tag to pour new concrete, Blakely says.
“What I would love to be able to do is jackhammer all this concrete up,” Blakely said. “That’s unfortunately one of the projects that was on our to-do list.”
That’s not happening this year. The district asked for a pair of levies totaling nearly half a million dollars. The bulk of that would’ve gone toward safety projects.
In an annual budget of $12 million, Blakely says she knows $16,000 doesn’t sound like a lot.
“However, if it’s, ‘Fix the concrete’ or, ‘Use money for two special education paraprofessionals or to get reading or math curriculum, or to make sure our gyms are usable,’ then those will be our priorities over this,” Blakely said.
Blakely says she won’t eliminate art or music – two programs quick to fall in Montana schools when the budget is tight. Instead, she’s looking at dozens of smaller reductions, like cutting out field trips and restricting teachers’ print quotas.
“We’re kind of on rice and beans now,” Blakely said. “We’re looking at hardly any discretionary funds to be used for anything, and that’s a challenge.”
She’s still working out the budget for next school year. She’s unsure whether she’ll ask voters again to help pay for safety improvements.
