Mission teachers voice concerns

ST. IGNATIUS — All totaled, the St. Ignatius teaching staff has a combined 500 years experience educating students, according to Tim Marchant, an English teacher at Mission High School. In those five centuries, they’ve seen changes to administration, tweaks to curriculum — and accepted them as part of their job.

But some recent changes proposed by the St. Ignatius school board have caused concern among the teachers.

In a letter to the editor, received by The Leader April 5, The St. Ignatius teacher’s federation attempted to clarify their position regarding the changes.

“We embrace change, as long as it enhances the learning environment, and as long as it is sincere and transparent,” the teachers wrote.

One change that teachers feel has lacked the desired transparency: Superintendent Bob Lewandowski’s 17.5 percent salary increase. Teachers originally voiced concerns about his rumored raise at a March 22 school board meeting.

That evening, Marchant and fellow teacher Terry Cable made multiple requests for information about Lewandowski’s salary; they were eventually informed of his raise to $100,000.

Marchant and Cable said that subsequent requests for a detailed justification of the raise have yielded little information.

Comments by the superintendent published in a March 24 Leader article, particularly his suggestion that teachers were envious of the raise, have further deepened concerns.

“Our intention in questioning his 17.5 percent salary increase, to $100,000 per year, was an attempt to reconcile its discordance with the pitch and timbre of the economic/educational situation in Montana,” they wrote in the letter. “With double-digit unemployment in Lake and surrounding counties, we are not envious of the 17.5 percent. Rather we are disappointed.”

In the letter, they also pointed out that some parents and community members in Mission make less than $15,000 annually, and that public employees expect only a minimal salary increase this year. As such, the teachers noted, they cannot in good conscience support the superintendant’s raise.

In a later interview, Marchant again refuted the idea that the Mission teachers are actively seeking, or even desire such a raise.

“None of us are naïve,” Marchant said. “We’re not asking for 17.5 or anything close.”

He added that while teachers hope for a small, but reasonable raise, commensurate with other public employees, money is simply not the focus of their efforts.

As stated in their letter, the federation instead champions “all of those who have dedicated years of their lives to providing a better future for our students.”

The teaching staff has also expressed concerns about an issue unrelated to money: proposed changes to the school calendar that would double the number of Pupil Improvement Related (PIR) days.

“The administration is promoting the idea that teachers don’t want PIR days,” Cable said. “We encourage change, we encourage and welcome PIR days that are informative and useful.”

While Lewandowski is committed to PIR days that he says improve communication between staff and provide more time for teachers to interact, Cable and Marchant say PIR days that lack a clear purpose take away from face time with students.

“The amount of change is a set up for failure,” Marchant said. “We would prefer to approach the changes incrementally, a step-by-step kind of thing. Let’s fix the eight we have and then add one or two.”

Cable emphasized that communication lapses between administration and teaching staff have aggravated the issue, and that teachers would have preferred to be included in the decision. Instead, the calendar has gone to formal negotiations.

In addition to increased PIR days, the administration is considering changing the school day from seven periods of 53 minutes each to nine periods of 45 minutes, Cable said. It is this change, and its subsequent effects on learning, that has teachers the most concerned.

“The more I see them, the better the retention,” Marchant said, about meeting face-to-face with his students. “Reduced time is reduced retention.”

Cable added that in addition to affecting learning, changes to the school day would create additional strain on teachers.

“We’re being asked to teach more and more,” Cable said. “That requires time together.”

Negotiations regarding the school calendar and school day are ongoing.