HAVRE, Mont. (NMB) – While many schools along the Hi-Line have been forced to transition in and out of in-person learning this fall, Havre Public Schools has managed to stay the course so far.
However, Superintendent Craig Mueller says they have faced their fair share of challenges, and have come close to moving certain buildings to remote learning temporarily.
“There were times there in September where we seriously considered it because we got close to the end of the week, there were a rise in (COVID-19) cases not only in our student population, but in our staff population, at the onset of the weekend. And what we do then is communicate with building principals as to how their staffing is. And it’s one thing to say we’re able to continue in our current state, it’s quite another to ensure that we’re providing quality educational opportunities for our students, so that’s first and foremost in our conversation. Yeah, we might have people there. But we also don’t want to burn out our teaching and paraprofessional staff who are constantly being asked to cover in areas we might be short in. So those are all factors that are considered into it. So yeah, we’ve had conversations about what that might look like. But again, we have been able to push through that as of right now, and hope now that as we see some decreasing numbers in our District, that maybe we’re starting to see a little bit of that light at the end of the tunnel.”
One of those challenges has been making sure there are adequate transportation staff. This is a challenge faced by Districts across the state and nation, and Mueller says they have not needed to make major changes yet.
“We’ve had some situations where we’ve had to change some routes, and in a case, combine a route while we were addressing some of the shortages that we’ve had. We’ve really been excited and happy with the relief drivers that have stepped up to fill some of those routes to address those shortages. We really could use a couple additional bus drivers to meet the need of our transportation department. That would really help in our routing throughout the community.”
Mueller encourages anyone interested in being a bus driver to reach out to the District and apply.
