BHS students get back bond survey results

Back in April, a group of Bigfork High School seniors sent out 450 carefully crafted surveys to voters in the BHS school district asking why they said "yes' or "no" to the $11.1 million bond that failed twice during the previous school year.

The answers they got surprised them.

"The most interesting thing was that the pride of the community is the school," said Kodie Kunsman, who is the student body president at BHS. "A lot of people think this is a valuable piece of the community."

Of the 450 surveys sent out, the students got 138 responses.

But regardless of the value people may have put in the school, the results showed that many people felt the price tag was too high.

"A lot of people thought it wasn't necessary, that it was too much all at once," Kunsman said.

The seniors took on the project as part of the Bigfork Leadership Program, a series of seminars run by Bigfork resident Chris Stubbins designed to take a group of high school juniors each year with great leadership potential and help them grow into that role.

Last year was the inaugural one for the program, but when May came around, Stubbins was surprised to find that her group of juniors wasn't ready to be done.

So she gave them the option of staying in the program for their final year at BHS, but with the caveat that to do so, they had to take on a project.

Jerry Gaiser, one of the seniors who worked on the survey, said the choice of what that project might be was a simple one.

"Since it's important to us," he said, "we decided on the levy."

The first time the bond was put to a vote, it was accompanied by a $5.5 million request for the elementary and middle school that passed. Because the margin of defeat was only 84 votes, the school board went for it again, but voters in March sunk the request again, this time by almost 250 votes. Along with the school renovations and improvements, a plan for a vastly expanded library that would have served double duty for both the high school and the community was scuttled.

Quindee Averill, whose mother, Maureen, is on the school board, said a common theme from the respondents was a lack of communication and a misunderstanding of both the school's needs and the board's requests.

"They really need to spell it out for people," Quindee Averill said. "Communication with people is huge."

The survey was completely written and edited by students — to the point that Stubbins left a few grammatical errors in the questions — and received no directive from the school board, though Superintendent Russ Kinzer was consulted to ensure accuracy.

Stubbins said that not only does the survey provide valuable feedback and act as a community service, it was also an opportunity to get the students to put the leadership skills she's taught them into action.

"They tackled a tough project," she said. "They were very serious about what they did and they enjoyed it. They're a great group of kids"

Zac Bruer, Justin Edwards, Ariana Shults and Christina Thompson also worked on the project.

Students from the program will present their take on the survey, as well as a copy of the results in full, to the Bigfork School Board of Trustees at the May 20 meeting.