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The BSD7 Board Budget Committee met October 13 to dive deeply into the list of potential budget reductions that have been submitted by staff, students, and community members. The group has not arrived at any preliminary or final recommendations, but rather spent time asking clarifying questions to fully understand each of the community brainstormed solutions. The Budget Committee will reconvene in two weeks to continue the process to arrive at a recommendation to the Board of Trustees on how to solve the $4.1 million dollar budget imbalance. A few important details and reminders:

• Click HERE for a high level one-page overview of the BSD7 Budget Mega Issue

• Click HERE to ask questions and/or submit budget cut recommendations to the committee

• Click HERE for a recap of the submitted budget reduction strategies that are currently being discussed by the committee. The document is laid out as follows:

• Reduction ideas in blue have been vetted to show potential savings in the BSD7 K-12 General Fund Budget. Sorted alphabetically.

• Reduction ideas in orange have been vetted and don’t show any savings in the BSD7 K-12 General Fund Budget. Sorted alphabetically.

• Reduction ideas in red would require changes to state law, and are therefore outside of the District’s control. 

Thanks for your continued support of Bozeman Public Schools!

Casey Bertram, Superintendent

We have received a few requests to boil down the budget issues to a one-pager. Thanks in advance for taking a minute to read through THIS at–a-glance document.

Senate Bill 99 dealing with human sexuality instruction in schools has received a great deal of attention in recent weeks as school districts, teachers, administrators, parents/guardians, school boards, community members, and attorneys make sense of noticing requirements and the expansive definition of human sexuality instruction in the legislation.

Bozeman Public Schools has put together Senate Bill 99 Guidance Documents to ensure transparency and provide guidance to staff. Please Note: The guidance included in the document is subject to change as legal counsel and/or the court system clarifies and provides updated guidance to Montana Public Schools regarding Senate Bill 99. 

The BSD7 Board Budget Committee met during the months of June, July, and August and has laid the groundwork necessary in the Consensus process to begin moving forward with solutions to the K-12 general fund structural imbalance. A preliminary number of $4.1 million dollars is the anticipated amount that needs to be trimmed from the approximately $50 million dollar K-12 general fund budget. The committee will continue to meet monthly and anticipates wrapping up the process with recommendations to the BSD7 Board of Trustees in December, 2022.

The purpose of This Survey Tool is to engage the community of Bozeman in the K-12 Board Consensus Budget Committee - Mega Issue conversation. This tool is designed to capture questions from stakeholders, as well as create an opportunity for community members to weigh-in and help with the brainstorming related to solving the K-12 General Fund imbalance that is being tackled via the Board Consensus Budget Committee process.

Prior to asking questions or providing ideas for potential solutions please ensure you are up-to-speed with the background information related to the topic. Please read through the information under the Agendas/Dates/Documents and Mega Issue Information tabs on the Mega Issues portion of the BSD7 website.

Please Note: Due to the anticipated volume of survey responses the District may or may not respond directly to your question/s via email. However, the questions that are bubbling up will help inform the communications plan as the District moves through the process, thus ensuring that high frequency questions are being addressed via District communication channels and in the local media. Potential solutions that are submitted via this survey tool will be vetted by the District and may be discussed during the Board Consensus Budget Committee process.

Please Note: The survey tool is anonymous by design. Should you wish to provide an email address associated with your question/s the District may contact you with a direct response. The district is collecting simple demographic information in the survey tool to help guide communications moving forward.

Thanks for your participation and for your support of Bozeman Public Schools!

Bozeman Public Schools Continues to operate under typical disease management protocols for the management of COVID-19. THIS document was created to be a helpful At-A-Glance document as parents/guardians and staff navigate symptoms of common respiratory and gastrointestinal infections, as well as symptoms of COVID-19. The At-A-Glance document was created via collaboration between the BSD7 nursing staff and the Gallatin City County Health Department (GCCHD). We encourage you to print it out and keep it someplace handy in your home. 

Bozeman Public Schools continues to share public health information, including positive cases of COVID-19, with the GCCHD. BSD7 is no longer tracking detailed data related to COVID-19, but rather referring to the community data being tabulated by GCCHD HERE. For questions or concerns feel free to reach out to District Nurse, Rebecca Spear, rebecca.spear@bsd7.org; or Director of Special Education and Student Health, Chad Berg, chad.berg@bsd7.org. For general information related to student health services please visit our website, HERE.