Glasgow Schools Pass Levy, End Five-Year Drought

The residents of the Glasgow School District delivered a decisive victory to its students, teachers, staff and administration in the vote for the school’s general operating levy on May 5.

With a vote margin of 214 votes, the district’s levy passed with 1,049 voting yes and 835 voting no. Seventeen ballots were turned in where the voter did not vote one way or the other for the levy making the total number of ballots cast 1,901. It is the first time since 2015 that the voters in the district approved a general levy.

Also on the ballot were two school board seats that were picked up by Angie Page with 1,431 votes and Blaine White with 1,202 votes.

Glasgow Schools Superintendent Wade Sundby told the Courier he wanted to thank the community for their support. “These are hard times and the support from the community is greatly appreciated.”

In 2019, the school failed to convince voters to fund pay increases for teachers by just 46 votes after years of not passing a request for increased income. In that year only 1,368 ballots were cast in the election suggesting 533 additional voters found extra time to cast ballots this year, potentially due to stay-at-home orders for the COVID-19 pandemic.

Speculating on whether so many turned out to vote due to COVID, Sundby said, “That might be, they had nothing more to do but stay home and vote, but I don’t know.”

Nonetheless, Sundby was appreciative of the turn out and said he had heard from teachers and members in the community congratulating the schools for passing the levy. Sundby said that for those invested in passing the levy there was, “Just the relief that we have support in our community.”

Of those invested in this year’s levy, Sundby extended a special thanks to the levy’s political action group, which advocated for the levy out in the community. In that group of eight were Robert Martin, Brady Flaaten, Lindsey Peterson, Dirk Markle, Dr. David Knierim, Angie Page, Sam Waters and Zach Burner.

The number one budget priority for the increase in funding is salaries and benefits explained Sundby. He said the school district was scheduled for salary negotiation the week of May 11 and they were planning to, “put that money out there,” in those meetings.

Also on the list is building maintenance and—combining funds from the CARES Act—updating some of the school’s technology and improving cleaning equipment to account for expected additional sanitation regulations following the COVID-19 pandemic.