Bozeman Schools Superintendent Placed on Administrative Leave

At 7 a.m. Monday, the Bozeman School Board met for what was termed a Special Meeting. Shortly after the start of the meeting, the Board retired into executive session. When they emerged, the Board voted unanimously to place Bozeman Schools Superintendent Bob Connors on administrative leave. They did continue the meeting but soon adjourned after taking only a handful of public comments via Zoom.

The Board did not say why or what led to their action. Going into the meeting, they did have the following personnel item on the official meeting agenda:

Personnel item - Consideration and possible action on alleged policy violation (possible executive session pursuant to 2-3-203(3), MCA).

We don't know that today's action had anything to do with it, but it is interesting to note that last week the Board did cancel two public meetings before finally meeting this morning. This surprise announcement comes on the day that elementary kids in the Bozeman School District returned to full-time in-classroom instruction.

The Bozeman School Board did not elaborate on their decision.

Many parents have expressed frustration on how the board and the superintendent have handled the COVID-19 pandemic in regards to how their kids will be educated. Back on August 10th, the Bozeman School Board voted 5-3 to open the school year under a blended model where half of the students are in the classroom Monday & Tuesday, while the other half attends on Thursday & Friday. Distance learning is used on the other three days.

The school year's opening was delayed until September 8th so that teachers could get trained on new online learning systems.

Then on September 1st, the Bozeman School Board voted to return kids to full-time in-classroom instruction with the following schedule:

Pre-Kindergarten - 5th Grade: November 2nd
Middle School - Start of 2nd Trimester, November 23rd.
High School - Beginning of 2nd Semester: January 25th.

This is a developing story . . .