After finding out the Operational Levy for Great Falls Public Schools failed, someone posted on Facebook, “What rotten excuses for human beings would vote no on the levy?!?!? Seriously, who would actually vote against this?!”

It seems it’s pretty easy for some people to vote against the kids in Great Falls. Many vote “against the kids” because they are jealous or mad that some administrators make a decent living.

The school levy was defeated 9,648 – 8,056 or by 1,592 votes. On the bright side, the creation of a Park District was approved 8,279 – 7,738. Another bright spot was that two solid people were elected to the school board, Teresa Schreiner and Kim Skornogoski.

Great Falls has a population of 59,178 and only 17,704 people voted. Shameful.

One of the selling points for voting for the school levy was the fact that other Class AA schools in Montana: Billings, Missoula, Butte, Bozeman, Kalispell, and Helena all spend more per pupil than Great Falls. After the defeat of this levy, there will be even more of a difference in spending.

The people who vote against schools and children are what I like to call ignorant. They are part of a group of haters that whatever officials do, they are against it. Whether it be the school board, the school administrators, the city commission, city employees, county commissioners, county employees, these haters are mostly against what they do.

My long ago deceased father had a saying that he used when I or others would be unhappy with whatever was happening and complain a lot. I’m not sure it was originally his saying, but I remember he used it a lot.

He would say, “You’d probably bitch and gripe if you were hung with a new rope.”

Many of these 9,648 voters who voted against the kids fall into the “new rope” category.

As for the school district, school board, school foundation, and the union that many belong, you need a new strategy to combat the haters in the community. I come from the old school – you take the jerks head on and most of them will fade away in cowardice. State the facts on social media and take the high road in regard to name-calling.

The News Coverage:

Great Falls’ Independent News Source, The Electric, gets the “Gold Medal” for their coverage of the election results. Visit their website HERE.

As for the main newspaper, the Great Falls Tribune, all I can say is they tried. In today’s electronic version, this is the part of the election story about the school board election:

Voters also decided on two trustees for the GFPS School Board. X was selected to serve a three-year term, filling former trustee Bob Moretti’s seat. X was selected to serve a two-year term, filling the seat abruptly vacated by Don Ryan in September 2017. Kim Skornogoski was elected to temporarily fill this seat until the May 8 election.

The Tribune is circling the drain. Most news that happens after 8:00 p.m. is not covered in the next day’s print or electronic version of the paper. One part that I miss is the editorials – the Tribune hardly has them anymore.

Closing:

The Great Falls School District will survive. Some teachers and assistants will be released to save money. Programs will be cut and some items that they need to teach won’t be purchased. Teachers will work extra hours to catch up and purchase supplies out of their own pockets. Businesses looking to relocate to Great Falls will take notice that at least for this request, the locals do not support their public schools.

The haters won this round.

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