Thirty-seven-year-old Ashley Bullshoe was fired from Heart Butte School last week. So was her husband, Joseph Comes At Night and 29 other teaching assistants, maintenance and kitchen workers and counselors. Bullshoe and her husband worked as custodians and she said she’s not sure what they’ll do next.
“Having the kids come back to a clean school, you know, that’s what made it fun,” Bullshoe said. “You think about the other employees, you know — what are they going to do? They have bills to pay. It’s going to be hard on them.”
The school board handed down the terminations to save money. District auditing recently uncovered more than a million dollars in debt linked to misused school credit cards and unpaid payroll taxes.
Heart Butte served just over 200 students last year. Now, a coalition of local and state leaders are proposing ways to keep the school open.
Superintendent of Public Instruction Elsie Arntzen said the state may use unspent COVID-19 relief funding to help pay Heart Butte’s debt. She said the state has two employees in Heart Butte providing support to teachers.
“If we had a roadmap on how to fix, we would not even be in this position,” Arntzen told MTPR in a phone call. “But, we are in this position, because this is unprecedented.”
Arntzen said Heart Butte School is the only major economic driver in the rural community.
Democratic state Rep. Tyson Running Wolf said that adds to the importance of stabilizing the school quickly. The lawmaker from Browning said he and other members of the Legislature’s American Indian Caucus intend to hold Arntzen to her promise of relief funding for Heart Butte.
“It’s all about the kids,” Running Wolf said. “It always is about how we’re going to get that education to them.”
Arntzen and Running Wolf said the timeline for when financial aid might be approved is unclear, but both said the district will remain open at least through the end of the school year.
