Dear Families, Staff, and the Helena Community,

Each week since the successful bond election, we are moving forward on laying the groundwork for our new schools and it is my intention to keep the community up-to-date on each phase of this exciting process.

Last week, I outlined the Request for Qualifications process the district and our owner’s representative, Shane Swandal, are using to select architects by Thanksgiving.

This week, it’s been all about certifying the election and laying out the process for issuing the bonds. At Wednesday’s public Board meeting, trustees unanimously certified both the elementary and high school bond election results followed by unanimously adopting resolutions to authorize the issuance of both elementary and high school bonds. Following these actions, our district’s Bond Council, Dan Simmons, and the D.A. Davidson Managing Director of Public Finance, Bridget Ekstrom, outlined the bond sale process which begins with creating a bond committee, then starting the process of going through the bond rating, publishing the official statement and disclosure required by law and, finally, getting the bonds out to the public.

The Elementary District’s bond term will be twenty years, while the bond term for the High School District will be thirty years. Bonds will be available to purchasers with lengths that range from one year to the maturity of each bond term and be exempt from both state and federal tax. There will be a series of two bond issues for the Elementary District bonds and a series of three for the High School District. The offerings, once finalized, will be publicly advertised and available for purchase in $5,000 increments by individuals, banks, insurance companies and other institutions. Our goal is to have the first series of both elementary and high school bonds available for public purchase by November 20!

In other news, fourth graders and some third graders from our district attended the 26th Annual Demonstration Day as part of the Last Chance Community Powwow this weekend. The opportunity to attend this event is not only a highlight of students’ fourth grade year, but it is an important immersion of their history curriculum. We appreciate our community partners, educators, and IEFA liaisons for making this annual event possible for our students to attend.

Looking forward to what our schools have coming up – it’s Capital High School’s homecoming week; it’ll be Helena High School’s turn for College Application Week; and PAL students have started their Block 2 content, which includes the EconoQuest conference and competition in Bozeman at the end of October where the students will dive into real-world economics and career opportunities; our middle school students continue to grow beyond the classroom and are exploring and balancing schedules that include extracurriculars; and various grades in elementary school are participating in field trips that take classroom content into the world for them to see and interact with.

Speaking of, on Thursday, October 2, Central Elementary School will host its Military Recognition Morning at 8:00 a.m. Central is pending Purple Star designation, which is a program designed to support military- connected students and families. As part of the event, they are putting together a Wall of Honor- displaying past and current veterans. We look forward to this event and more coming up!

Respectfully,

Rex Weltz, Superintendent
Helena Public Schools

• APPLICATION DUE TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30

• APPLICATION DUE TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30