How many school districts is too many?

It’s a question that has plagued Montana for decades. In 1930, there were 2,439 independent school districts in the state, according to the Office of Public Instruction. Today, there are 417 operating school districts, 5 percent of which are in Flathead County.

Many of the county’s 23 districts have annexed or consolidated with other districts at some point in their history.

Smith Valley is the newest district in the valley, formed from two of the oldest. In 1989 the Batavia School District, founded in 1895, and the Boorman district, formed in 1902 from parts of the Batavia and Kila districts, consolidated.

Mike Welling was the principal of Batavia School at the time. His school and Boorman School, just a mile or so north of Batavia, each had multigrade classrooms and small student populations.

To improve students’ education, the districts began to discuss consolidation.

“We had the opportunity to create a school where there were more opportunities for students, with single-graded classrooms.” Welling said. “There would be more opportunities for middle school students, with instructional programs there and things like sports.”

Not everyone supported the idea, he said, but consolidation seemed like a good idea to  many in those districts. Voters in both districts approved the move, said Welling, who became the principal of the new consolidated district.

Several crucial decisions immediately followed the vote. A brand-new district needed a new school board, a new name and a new mascot.

To form a new board, one trustee was appointed from the old Batavia and Boorman boards, Welling said. The county superintendent appointed a third trustee who had not been on either school board.

Students made suggestions for a new school name. Smith Valley, named for Smith Lake, seemed an appropriate choice to the trustees. The students likewise chose their new mascot — the Wolverines — and the school’s black, white and red team colors.

Even with the hard decisions out of the way, the transition wasn’t easy, Welling said. Both schools continued to operate, with seventh- and eighth-graders on the Boorman campus and the younger grades at the Batavia school.

“For the first couple of years there were people who felt that their part of the community was being short-changed,” Welling said. “And for a long time, there were people who felt very strongly that we had to keep classes in both buildings.”

It wasn’t until a new building was finished on the Batavia campus in 2004 that the district was able to put all its students at one location.

Despite the communities’ emotional ties to their schools, Welling said the transition went well.

“From my perspective, it was remarkably smooth,” he said. “There were very few complaints, and no major issues whatsoever.

“I think people saw very quickly that what we told them we were working towards [better opportunities for their students] came to be.”

Nearly all staff were retained when the districts merged, he added. Smith Valley even had to add personnel as its enrollment grew.

“It was absolutely a good move,” he said.

Other consolidations throughout the state have, like Smith Valley, taken place at the local level. But there have been discussions about legislating or mandating consolidation for years.

The most recent consolidation bill to appear before the state Legislature was in 1993, said Madalyn Quinlan, chief of staff at the state Office of Public Instruction. At that time, OPI brought forward a bill that would have aligned independent elementary districts with the high school districts they fed into.

“When we introduced it, there was a very brief hearing on it in one committee,” Quinlan said. “It never got out of committee.”

People still bring up consolidation frequently. Just last week, Quinlan said she and state Superintendent Denise Juneau fielded questions on the topic at a meeting of K-12 education groups.

But OPI isn’t likely to push for consolidation or voluntary alignment anytime soon.

“It’s not a priority for us right now,” Quinlan said. “We don’t feel we have the capacity in our office to support the process, to discuss consolidation.”

There is a financial incentive for districts that consolidate, she said. Each district receives a basic entitlement from the state; when two districts consolidate, the combined district receives two basic entitlements for three years.

That has been attractive to many districts in eastern Montana and along the Hi-Line. Several districts there have chosen to consolidate in recent years, largely because of dwindling enrollments.

Joel Voytoski, now the superintendent of the Evergreen School District, was the superintendent of schools in Chester when Joplin and Inverness consolidated.

“In the Hi-Line, consolidation was basically because of necessity,” he said. “The schools got so small. We’re talking systemwide K through 12, 30 or 40 students. It just got to a point where you’ve got two or three kids sitting in a class.”

Despite those numbers, Joplin and Inverness fought consolidation, Voytoski said. But in the end, they had to join forces.

“Even though the communities fought to keep their schools — because once a school is gone, communities tend to dry up — they could not efficiently operate or provide adequate education,” he said.

The consolidated district operated a school in each community, but when Chester became part of the district in 2005, schools in Joplin and Inverness closed, Voytoski said. Over the course of about 30 districts, the communities had gone from three schools to one.

Something similar could one day happen in the Flathead, Voytoski said.

“Here, probably out of necessity, some consolidation will happen over time,” he said. “I really do think those are decisions best made by the local people in those communities.”

Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or by e-mail at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com