School's out and it's a great time to celebrate the quality of teachers we have in Big Sandy giving them a high five to say thank you! Somehow over the years people in our country have lost their high regard for teachers. We have some excellent teachers in our community and they deserve to be recognized and thanked.

Brad Moore said, "It's hard, almost impossible to keep good teachers in Big Sandy." Montana has the lowest starting salary in the nation at $30,036, according to the National Education Association. The national average starting for teacher salary is $36,617, while the average teacher salary in America $58,950. In Montana, the average is $40,726 per year which is 13% below the national average. "We lose a high percentage to other states each year," Brad responded. In order to keep quality teachers in Montana Brad said, "they have to have a real tie to the community they are going to or to the state. There are some that would never leave the state like myself, I would never leave Montana."

It helps greatly to have a four-day work week. 'If I am competing with neighboring schools with everything else being equal. It is a tipping point in most cases." The four-day school day has helped with a lot of things. Although there was some push back to the four-day school week from all accounts most everyone really likes the concept.

"It does come down to the dollars." Brad said. "Public education can be expensive to run because a large chunk of it (our tax dollars) goes to it. Our state legislature does try and address this. What has happened in the last legislative sessions is they are giving us much more flexibility, which helped greatly. There have been some increases lately though small, when natural resources in Montana were at their peak we saw the benefit of that." When natural resources go down, well we feel the effect of that too.

This year besides the quality teacher base that are committed to our area we also had great teachers in the music, art, and voc-ag areas. "It is a rarity for a school this size to have a full-time art, music, and shop teacher. Outstanding teachers in these fields." Credit must be given to the Big Sandy School Board and Brad Moore for not making cuts to the school program in these areas. We have 17 teachers in Big Sandy, hopefully those that remain will value Big Sandy and feel a connection to us and stay.

The current Board of Trustees are: Darin Genereux- Board Chair dgenereux@bigsandy.k12.mt.us, Jeri Roth-jroth@bigsandy.k12.mt.us, Heather Pleninger- hpleninger@bigsandy.k12.mt.us, Brad Weaver- bweaver@bigsandy.k12.mt.us , and Brandon Gasvoda- bgasvoda@bigsandy.k12.mt.us. They have, along with our new Superintendent, the responsiblity to set the tone for the teachers of Big Sandy. However, whether the teacher feels a part of our community or not depends on all of us.