SEELEY LAKE- The Seeley Lake Elementary School Board met Thursday, June 21 to discuss the proposed ice skating rink location as well as changes being made over the summer to make the school a safer place during emergencies.
Gary Swain, member of the ice rink committee, and Jim McLean, president of the Seeley Lake Regional Outdoor Center for Kinetic Sports (ROCKS), asked the board to make a decision regarding their proposal for an ice rink on the grounds of Seeley Lake Elementary school.
The first phase of the project would be to construct a small, temporary ice rink to gauge the community’s interest in the project. The discussion at the meeting centered around where the rink would go and the additional resources that would be needed for the project.
“I was doing some measurements and if you have five acres or so in athletic fields, the first configuration I’m talking about would be less than 20 percent of an acre,” Swain said. “So you’re looking at like one twenty-fifth of the space out here to do this.”
School board Chair Todd Johnson said he hasn’t heard any teachers or people in the community speaking out in support of the project and suggested a visual representation might help spark conversation.
“One thing that may help, just visually for folks, is if you could go out there and stake out what you’ve envision this being this first round,” Johnson said. “Maybe stake out an area that’s not right next to the school, in the corners or something so at least people can visually see what you’re looking at.”
The board discussed many possible locations for the rink but agreed for now to let the group stake out the size of the rink and give more people time to comment to the board about their thoughts on the project once they were able to see the size and potential location of the rink.
Another concern regarding the ice rink was the liability it creates in the case that someone gets injured. Superintendent Chris Stout said he would get a quote for the cost of adding an ice rink to the school’s insurance policy. The rink committee would then pay the school for the additional cost.
Several projects are also underway at SLE to make the school safer during an emergency.
An emergency PA system is being installed in the ceilings of classrooms so that during emergency situations announcements can be heard in every room of the school. Over the summer the school’s smoke detectors, which are more than 20 years old, will be replaced with new ones.
The other major change in safety procedures is the introduction of an app called Rave Panic Button, which will use smartphones as well as any school computer to deliver information about the emergency to all other teachers as soon as the app is activated. It will also connect the user to emergency services through 911.
“It’s an emergency alert system that will work in conjunction with other things we already have going,” Stout said. “If we had a situation occur, we can push an icon that will send out a message to everybody on the system.”
Heather Mincey, the district’s business manager, said that the app was recommended by the sheriff’s office.
“So it immediately connects to both [911 and the sheriff’s office] and then also the Missoula County sheriffs can see immediately where that call is coming from in the school,” she said. “Even if someone doesn’t have a smartphone, they can still dial 911 from any phone here and they’ll still be able to see where in the school that call is coming from.”
SLE is partnering with Swan Valley Elementary who will be implementing the system as well. This will also make it affordable with each school paying half the cost of the $3,600 service. The schools will set up separate user groups so they do not receive notices about one another’s emergencies.
The app has buttons to alert emergency services to an active shooter, a fire emergency, a medical emergency, a button to call police and an option for any emergency that does not fall within those mentioned.
The board also discussed hiring a new first grade teacher, after the previous teacher did not return a renewed contract and a new music teacher after the resignation of teacher Kristen Cottom to teach music at Hellgate High School in Missoula.
The board canceled their July meeting because they were unsure they needed to meet in July. They will only meet if it later was deemed necessary. The next meeting is scheduled for Aug. 21 at 5:30 p.m. in the SLE Technology Lab.
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