An emergency meeting of the Trego school board was called again on May 4 at 4 PM to update the community on the methamphetamine contamination of the school grounds.. Although the meeting was poorly noticed, there were nearly 40 community members in attendance, these included parents, teachers, former students and teachers and interested community members. Four of the five board members attended.
Kris Glover, school board chairman opened the meeting with a summary of what has been done to date with regard to meth contamination on the school grounds. At the April school board meeting the board decided to test the “teacherage” based upon concerns of community members that there was illicit activity going on there. The teacherage is the school owned building on the school property that has historically housed employees of the school. The test results of the teacherage came back in late April with a result of 280. An acceptable level of meth exposure is less than 1.5. Out of an abundance of caution and reports from community members that there was suspicious activity within the school historically, the board voted to close the school and have it tested as well.
A portion of the school has been tested and that test revealed contamination in many areas, most registered at what is considered acceptable levels, but the library was elevated at 1.5 and the school was deemed unsafe. As a result, the remaining areas of the school will also be tested and plans will be developed for mitigation. The cost of the additional testing is $1750 and the board voted to move forward with testing on May 8th. Once testing is complete and after mitigation, the entire school will be tested again and if deemed safe, can reopen. Until this time the school is on lockdown with no entry for staff, students, or the community. Nothing that is currently inside the school can be removed for fear of further contamination.
Because testing is not yet complete, there is no estimate for the cost of the remediation of the school, or a timeline on when that can be completed. The board has been in touch with the state superintendent whose primary goal is to ensure that they get the students back into a school environment as quickly as possible.
The current plan for students is to bus them to an available classroom at Eureka high school. Bus routes are being determined and lunch will be available for students at the school. Trego teachers are trying to meet with the high school immediately to evaluate the classroom and plan for students return.
During this meeting the board also voted to process teacher payroll for the pay period that should have been paid out on May 4. Payroll records are locked in the school and are unavailable so they will pay based upon historical average hours. There are six staff members at the school who are impacted. Thirteen students attend the school and grades range from kindergarten to eighth grade. State teacher to student ratios are 1:22 based upon Montana state law.
Meeting attendees were largely supportive of getting the school back open and ensuring minimal impact to students. To that end, the TFS Community Hall board members in attendance voted to loan two laptops to the school for use to get payroll authorized and support the school while their equipment is unavailable due to exposure.
While the meeting was mostly positive, there was significant concern as to how this incident was allowed to happen, and how long it took for an appropriate response. Parents expressed concern that their children were exposed for an extended period of time. They expressed the satisfaction that, despite the board having their attention called to the illicit activities, no action was taken to investigate. A request for board meeting minutes from that period of time was made in the board said they do not have those minutes.
Trego school and the preschool had recently received a $700,000 literacy grant and it is unknown at this time how this contamination issue will impact the grant funding. The preschool had significant obligations under that grant and will not be open for the remainder of the year and, as a result, are unable to fulfill their requirements. This could put the funding, or a portion of the funding at risk.
Three positions on the school board were up for re-election on May 5. Newly elected members will be sworn in at the regular June meeting of the school board on May 13th at 5:30pm. It is unlikely the school will be remediated by then, so the meeting location has not been confirmed. The school board will notice the location prior to the meeting.
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