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Missoula parent urges trustees to consider public trust after levies, cuts and new hires
Summary
During public comment, parent Beau Larkin described his son's progress and warned that voters would remember the district's sequence of selling property, cutting teachers and then hiring administrators and giving the superintendent a raise after levies passed.
Beau Larkin, a parent whose son previously attended Lewis and Clark Elementary, used the public-comment period to urge trustees to consider how post-levy decisions appear to taxpayers. Larkin described a teacher‑led behavior plan that produced a measurable turnaround in his child's performance and then recounted a series of district actions he found troubling after levies passed: property sales, teacher cuts that could push third-grade classes above 30 students, hiring a new administrator and extending the superintendent's contract with a 4.7% raise.
"I think you'd have to work pretty hard to find a parent who thinks this sequence makes sense," Larkin said, summarizing his concern that voters who supported levies would view the subsequent staffing and contract decisions as a breach of public trust. He closed by saying voters will remember the sequence when contracts are up and families consider reenrollment.
Trustees listened during the three-minute public-comment period and did not respond directly because the remarks were not on the published agenda, per the chair's opening remarks about public-comment rules.
