A year ago, BHS won the consolation game after losing to Helena Capital in the first round.

After falling to eventual champion Missoula Big Sky in the semifinals on Friday, the Hawks came back Saturday morning to defeat Capital 42-31 in a loser-out game at Butte High School. Elli Graff scored a game-high 17 points, two short of her season high, and grabbed 13 rebounds, also a game high, to push her team to victory. Kellie Cole scored 14 points.

Saturday represented the final appearance for seniors Gabriella Krevat, Coriann Clark, Emilee Grubb, Breanna Winters and Graff.

Bozeman closed the season at 18-7.

Missoula Big Sky won its second consecutive championship Saturday night with a 56-46 victory over Butte.

Helena Capital 54, Bozeman Boys 51

Matt Miller’s three-point play with 2.8 seconds left lifted Capital into the consolation game and ended the season for the Bozeman boys in a loser-out game Saturday morning at Butte High School. Bozeman, which trailed 47-40, had tied the game on an alley-oop pass from Gabe Rucker to Jacob Owsley.

Owsley led the Hawks, who finished the season with a 17-6 record, with 14 points and a game-high eight rebounds. P.J. Burns had 12 points and Tanner Roderick 11, including three 3-pointers.

Ben Ternes led Capital with 17 points and five 3-pointers.

The game was the final one for seniors Zach Brown, Will Waylander, Andy Ballinger, Matt Mullins, Rucker and Burns.

Bozeman girls 42, Capital 31

Bozeman 11 5 11 15 — 42

Capital 10 7 4 10 — 31

Bozeman (18-7) — Jenna Banks 0-4 0-0 0, Coriann Clark 0-5 0-0 0, Lindsay Manning 1-5 0-0 3, Emilee Grubb 1-5 2-3 4, Alexa Dawkins 2-6 0-0 4, Elli Graff 7-8 3-9 17, Kellie Cole 4-8 6-11 14. Totals 15-42 11-23 42.

Capital — Kalli Heller 0-2 0-0 0, Sammi Bignell 2-11 0-0 5, Kelsi Brekke 4-13 4-7 14, Caity Pilgeram 0-1 0-0 0, Alecia Wilson 0-5 1-4 1, Kaci Matthies 0-1 0-0 0, Jordan Johnston 4-8 1-6 9, Kelsey Grey 1-2 0-0 2. Totals 11-43 6-17 31.

3-point goals — Boz 1-14 (Manning 1-4, Banks 0-4, Clark 0-2, Cole 0-2, Grubb 0-1, Winters 0-1), HC 3-19 (Brekke 2-8, Bignell 1-8, Heller 0-1, Pilgeram 0-1, Wilson 0-1). Rebounds — Boz 40 (Graff 13), HC 32 (Bignell 10, Grey 7).

Capital 54, Bozeman boys 51

Bozeman 15 7 10 19 — 51

Capital 12 17 7 18 — 54

Bozeman (17-6) – Tanner Roderick 4-17 0-0 11, Will Waylander 0-1 0-0 0, P.J. Burns 3-6 5-5 12, Gabe Rucker 3-8 0-0 7, Jacob Owsley 6-8 2-2 14, Andy Ballinger 0-2 0-0 0, Matt Mullins 3-6 1-2 7. Totals 19-48 8-9 51.

Capital — Ben Ternes 6-10 0-1 17, Chris Darlow 0-2 0-0 0, Kelan Farry 1-3 0-0 3, Matt Miller 6-14 3-5 15, Carter Bignell 1-2 1-2 3, Josh Dirks 1-2 2-6 4, Tyler Erickson 5-12 2-4 12. Totals 20-45 8-18 54.

3-point goals — Boz 5-16 (Roderick 3-8, Waylander 0-1, Burns 1-2, Rucker 1-5), HC 6-15 (Ternes 5-7, Darlow 0-2, Farry 1-1, Miller 0-4, Erickson 0-1). Rebounds — Boz 29 (Owsley 8, Mullins 7), HC 32 (Miller 6, Dirks 6).

“I think people just ridicule us over there,” the girl said. “Some kids can be very rude or hurtful because someone has different color hair, or piercings or they’re hungry. They don’t understand there’s more to life than going to prom.

“I wouldn’t be graduating if not for these people,” she said tearfully of Bridger’s staff and students. “I would be hungry if not for these people.”

One teenage boy said if not for Bridger, he’d likely be in a jail. At Bozeman High, he said, he got into fistfights, was called a fag and saw other kids humiliated.

“I say we can go to some other building,” he said. “But I say – not the other school. Being around those people would be devastating.”

The girl and boy were two of the 40 Bridger students, nearly half the student body, who turned out Thursday afternoon to plead for keeping their school apart from Bozeman High.

Sitting in a large circle in the library at Bridger, housed on the second floor of Willson School, the students took turns giving emotional testimony to some of the people who will decide Bridger’s fate – Superintendent Kirk Miller and two trustees from the School Board, which has the ultimate say.

School administrators last week presented a draft plan for balancing the budget next school year and erasing a $1.5 million budget shortfall. One of the most controversial proposals calls for saving $130,000 to $300,000 by moving Bridger next fall to the main high school campus.

Miller said Friday he still believes Bridger can be moved without harming the program or its students.

Bridger’s success and its strong sense of family depend on its people — not on buildings, bricks and mortar, he said.

It could be a fantastic “school within a school,” he said.

Moving Bridger would allow teachers, counselors and Bridger’s assistant principal to more easily spend part of their workdays helping out in the main school, and their counterparts in the main school could help out at Bridger, Miller said.

That efficiency — or vacancy savings in the high school staff — could save $130,000 a year every year from now on, without eliminating Bridger’s day-care center for students who have had babies or other essentials, Miller said.

Bozeman High Student Council leaders and Bridger students have already started talking about ways to improve understanding between the two student bodies, he said, by making videos about a day in the life of each school, which could be shown to each others’ schools.

“I am saying it’s possible,” Miller said, to make Bridger successful on the Bozeman High campus.

But the Bridger kids argue it’s impossible.

“I hate the high school. They think every girl here is pregnant and every student is on drugs,” said Caven Simenson, 16, a freshman. He and a couple students were standing on the Fourth Avenue sidewalk known as Bridger’s smoking corner, though none was smoking.

“Bridger students really are bullied,” said Keri Barrett, 15, a repeating freshman. “We’re threatened and called names. They say, ‘You’re such a slut for going there.’ I have panic attacks at the main high school because it’s so big, so stressful.”

At Bridger, she said, “It’s like a giant family.”

Bozeman High is “the scene of their trauma,” one Bridger staff member said. “When kids get traumatized, you don’t send them back to that environment.”

‘Believed in me’

“You’re looking at the sons and daughters of alcoholics,” the former fist-fighter told school officials at Thursday’s meeting with students.

“Gamblers,” another student chimed in. Junkies, prostitutes, others said aloud.

The Bridger students could also have said their school has graduated the sons and daughters of doctors, Realtors and librarians — middle-class and professional parents who feared their children might never get an education.

Every year at Bridger’s cap-and-gown ceremony, Willson Auditorium is filled with cheering families. Every year, mothers and fathers give heartfelt thanks to Bridger, saying without the caring staff, their child would never have earned a diploma.

Bridger was founded 17 years ago to save pregnant girls, potential dropouts and kids who didn’t fit in or felt lost at the 1,800-student main high school.

Officially Bridger is not a separate school but part of Bozeman High.

Bridger last week had 88 students and two on a waiting list. All attend voluntarily – students aren’t “sent” to Bridger as punishment. It has four full-time teachers, several part-time teachers, two counselors, a part-time librarian and secretary.

Rebecca Mitteness-Wendel, the full-time assistant principal in charge of Bridger the past three years, reports to Bozeman High Principal Godfrey Saunders.

It may be hard for Bozeman parents to understand why anyone wouldn’t want to attend Bozeman High. It has a great record in everything from athletics to Advanced Placement college-level classes. It has been ranked as one of the best 400 schools in the nation.

But some kids just don’t fit in there, and for them Bridger offers an alternative.

Bridger has graduated roughly 500 students over the years, estimated Dave Swingle, its administrator from its founding in 1992 to 2006.

Asked about successes, Swingle said Bridger students have gone on to become nurses, musicians, soldiers and college graduates. He pointed to Kelly Carlsten, a 1999 graduate, who came to Bridger as a “last-ditch effort” before she gave up on school.

“I was angry, depressed and lost,” Carlsten wrote in a letter to the school. Bridger teachers motivated her and students became her second family. Voted class president, she cried when she spoke at graduation because “these people believed in me.”

Carlsten went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in biology and last year a doctorate of veterinary medicine at Colorado State University.

Not all Bridger stories end so happily. Every graduation, the school awards scholarships named for graduates who died tragically young.

Swingle said he has worked at several alternative high schools, including one housed in the abandoned wing of a main high school.

“It’s not that this (move) won’t work,” he said. “But there are going to be casualties in the process. And do we need to do it?

“I say don’t rock the boat. You’ve got something really good, exemplary, known around the state. Find a way of keeping it.”

If Bridger is moved, Swingle said, the transition needs to be well-planned, with lots of involvement by the kids, and it should likely take a year. Bridger needs to keep its full-time administrator, he added.

“Nobody is a villain here,” he said. “We’re really up against (economic) hard times.”

Anywhere but Bozeman High

Bridger has always been an expensive program.

This year Bridger’s budget is $657,000. That’s $8,114 to educate each Bridger student, nearly twice the $4,427 per student at the main high school.

Bridger costs more because it has a much smaller number of students for each staff member.

“Our kids need a lot of support,” Mitteness-Wendel said. “They need as many caring adults in their lives as possible, so they can thrive and succeed in their lives.

“We have so many fragile kids,” she said. “They recognize this is a caring place. We’re the only support they have.”

Sitting in her crowded office, Mitteness-Wendel said she knows there are some great “schools within schools.” But the fact that Bridger has been apart may make it harder to fit at Bozeman High.

“We did have a vote of the entire student body. If we have to move, they’re willing to move anywhere – just not there,” she said. “Everybody raised their hands.”

Miller said there are alternative ways to balance the budget without moving Bridger, though he couldn’t yet say what the next best options might be.

The district’s budget committee was still working Friday to refine its cost-saving plan, which started with 300 suggestions and has been whittled to 70 ideas.

Miller said School Board trustees will be presented with a list of options when they next tackle the budget at the March 23 meeting.

Last week Miller described moving Bridger as the only option that would save “$300,000 … in one fell swoop.”

That figure includes $130,000 in staffing efficiencies, plus two other changes that could be made without moving Bridger. Not replacing one of the three assistant principals at the main high school, who is resigning, would save $90,000. Moving the nonprofit Thrive, which runs the CAP mentor program for the schools, to Bridger’s current space would save $74,000 in downtown rent, but one trustee pointed out Thrive could move just as well to a wing at the main high school.

Miller had no estimate for the cost of renovating old wings at Bozeman High to accommodate Bridger, but said it likely would be minimal. And such one-time costs could be paid for with federal stimulus money, he said.

Originally, the School Board was going to try to decide on March 23 which tax-raising measures to place before voters on the May 5 ballot.

Miller said Friday he now plans to recommend that the school district hold two elections – one required by state law on May 5 to elect School Board trustees, and another later in the spring to decide on tax issues.

There’s just too much uncertainty right now about the Legislature’s school funding and federal stimulus money, Miller said. Holding two elections would likely cost an additional $15,000.

‘It makes a difference’

One Bridger staffer privately expressed no faith in “listening sessions” with administrators, suggesting they were a sham.

Miller insisted the meetings aren’t just for show, but a sincere effort to make sure that the right decision is made, and if Bridger is moved, that it doesn’t create a hostile environment for students but a way that they can graduate.

Miller said he has been a Montana school superintendent for 17 years, and last year was the only year he hasn’t had to come up with major cuts. It’s always hard – all school programs are vitally important to some children and parents, he said.

The final decision is up to the eight elected School Board trustees.

Trustee Martha Collins, who attended the meeting with Bridger students, said she doesn’t know where other trustees stand on moving Bridger.

“I think it’s a terrible idea,” Collins said. “You’re putting them back in a toxic environment.”

Trustee Heide Arneson, who also attended the student meeting, said afterward, “They’re awesome, brave kids. I don’t know what we’re going to do. People need to realize, yes, this costs more per student. But it makes a difference.”

Dave Swingle, who retired in 2006 after leading Bridger as its assistant principal for 14 years, told the Bozeman School Board on Monday night that he opposes removing Bridger from its home on the second floor of Willson School.

At-risk students need lots of personal attention and don’t do well in large schools, Swingle said. He predicted that if Bridger was moved to the main high school campus, many students would drop out, which would cost the district $6,000 each in lost state funds and lead more kids to crime.

“I think they’ll leave, they’ll bail,” Swingle said. “If they don’t have a diploma, they’re doomed. If they can’t make a living, they’ll turn to ways they can make money.”

Several School Board trustees expressed surprise over the proposal to move Bridger and its 81 students.

The proposal is part of a larger plan, unveiled by administrators Monday, to erase a $1.5 million budget shortfall in next school year’s budget.

Trustee Bruce Grubbs said he felt “sort of blind-sided.” Trustee Heather Hart predicted it would be more controversial with the public than asking voters to pass property tax levies, another key part of the plan.

Superintendent Kirk Miller described the budget-balancing plan as just a draft, not a formal recommendation or a done deal.

But as the board’s discussion dragged on to 11:20 p.m., and became more emotional, Miller said there aren’t any other ways to save $300,000 “in one fell swoop.”

The School Board took no votes but must decide on major parts of the budget plan by the end of this month, the deadline for placing tax levies on the May 5 ballot.

Miller argued that the feeling of family between Bridger teachers and students depends on people, not buildings. He said high school students at the main high school and Bridger have already expressed willingness to work together. He said people, especially adults, tend to oppose any change.

Miller said at two “listening sessions” with Bridger staff, students and parents, people had already ended up in tears and walked out. Another session is scheduled for Thursday.

Trustee Martha Collins, who represents rural school areas that send their teenagers to Bozeman High, walked out of the board meeting at 10 p.m., almost in tears. She expressed frustration at being “left out of the loop” on the administrative budget talks and at the board’s failure to get around to the high school budget cuts after meeting for four hours.

“Dave Swingle put it very well n (moving Bridger) is going to ruin the program,” Collins said.

Moving Bridger next year would save $130,000 through greater efficiencies, Miller said. It would save another $90,000 in administrative salaries if Lori Guyer is not replaced when she steps down as one of four high school assistant principals. Instead, Bridger’s full-time assistant principal would be in charge of Bridger part-time and share duties at the main high school.

And it would save $74,000 if the school district moved the nonprofit Thrive, which runs the CAP mentor program in the schools, into Bridger’s current home, instead of paying rent at the old Salvation Army building downtown. Trustees said the same money could be saved if Thrive were moved to the main high school, not to Bridger’s space.

Hart expressed surprise that the idea of freezing teachers’ pay raises next year was apparently “taboo” and not going to be discussed as a way to balance the budget. Teachers’ raises and benefit increases will cost $1.28 million next year.

“I don’t see anybody else’s salaries going up,” Hart said.

Grubbs said it will be “a hard sell” to convince voters to pass a new “transition” tax levy when teachers are getting pay increases. Trustee Carson Taylor said passing levies this year may be tougher because voters have less money, they’re worried about their own futures, and assume wrongly that the federal stimulus money is going to bail out schools.

Miller said the plan promises voters that their property tax bills won’t go up. Though voters would be asked to pass additional taxes, these would be offset because 20-year bonds that built two elementary schools will be paid off this year and because the new Hyalite School is coming in $1 million under budget.

Trustee Sarah Glover called administrators’ budget plan “remarkable” because it doesn’t call for huge staff cuts.

The proposal would ask voters to OK some new property taxes, but those would be offset by the expiration of 20-year-old school taxes for construction of Morning Star and Emily Dickinson elementary schools and part of Bozeman High.

And the tentative plan calls for saving more than $250,000 by moving the Bridger alternative program, which serves about 90 students in danger of dropping out, from its current home at Willson School to the Bozeman High School campus.

Superintendent Kirk Miller said the draft plan was developed by a committee of nine people, led by Steve Johnson, assistant superintendent for business, who reviewed more than 300 budget-cutting ideas from the public, school staff and past bouts of belt-tightening.

Miller planned to explain the proposals Monday night to the School Board trustees, who must decide by March 25 if they’re going to place any tax measures on the May 5 ballot. Trustees could say yes or no to any part of the plan, he said.

It combines cost-saving steps with some ways to raise revenue. The most controversial proposals are likely to concern taxes and Bridger, Bozeman High’s alternative school program.

“This comprehensive package will not increase your property taxes,” Miller stressed.

Miller said he has already heard from some people that moving Bridger from the second floor of Willson School — where it has developed a close-knit sense of family that’s been crucial to students’ success in graduating — would kill the program. So far two “listening sessions” have been held with Bridger teachers, students, staff and parents, Miller said.

“Everyone recognizes the program is about the people … and not bricks and mortar,” Miller said. “Relocating that five blocks away doesn’t disintegrate the family. The goal would be to create the best ‘school within a school’ alternative program in the U.S.”

Under the draft plan:

• Voters in the Bozeman elementary district would be asked to approve a $500,000 “transition levy” for two years to cover expenses of opening Bozeman’s new elementary school, Hyalite. Johnson said that’s less than state law would allow — asking for up to $1 million for six years. No transition levy would be requested in the high school district.
• The three school buses owned by the school district, now used for field trips and activities, would be sold. Voters would be asked to OK transferring $390,000 they’ve already paid into a bus appreciation fund (for replacing old buses) to the general fund.
• School principals and every department would be asked to cut operating costs by 10 percent.
• Administrators wouldn’t get any salary increases next year, only money to offset increases in health insurance or benefit costs. One of four assistant principal jobs at Bozeman High would be eliminated; Bridger’s assistant principal would go from being a full-time to part-time position and share some other duties at Bozeman High.
• The nonprofit Thrive, which runs the CAP mentor program in the schools, would move to Willson School to save the $74,000 rent the school district now pays.
• Class sizes would be allowed to grow in “writing intensive” high school classes from 20 to 25 students.

If the Montana Legislature approves some federal stimulus money for the Bozeman schools, that one-time money would be used for creating jobs through shovel-ready projects, they said.

The Bozeman School Board voted 8-0 Monday night to choose Watson, 39. He will replace Godfrey Saunders, 55, who is retiring in June after 12 years leading the 1,800-student school.

Superintendent Kirk Miller said Watson was the unanimous choice of the 55-member committee of staff, students, parents, business people and administrators that considered four finalists for the job. He will earn $102,660.

“I feel very honored and privileged,” Watson said, before being applauded by the School Board. Bozeman High School, he said, “has a wonderful reputation for focus on student achievement and a comprehensive activities program.”

Watson has strong ties to Bozeman, where his mother, Joann, was a science teacher. He attended Longfellow School in third and fourth grades, Willson School in fifth and sixth grades, and Bozeman Junior High (now Chief Joseph Middle School) in seventh and eighth grades. He graduated from C.M. Russell High in Great Falls, where he played football, in 1988.

He received his bachelor’s degree at Montana State University in 1993 and, though he earned his doctorate of education in 2008 from the University of Montana, he still “bleeds blue and gold,” Miller said.

Miller said Watson has experience leading a large high school and a reputation for being a good communicator, ethical and a principal who attends all school events. One reference called him “one of the best,” Miller said, adding that a lot of folks in Missoula “insinuated swear words” when they learned Bozeman might hire him.

“He has built a reputation as someone who truly cares about students, staff and the community,” Miller said. He added Watson will have big shoes to fill, but will make a difference leading Bozeman High in the 21st century.

Moving back to Bozeman is a family decision, Watson said. His parents and sister live here. He and his wife, Heidi, a nurse, have two daughters, ages 3 and 6.

While Saunders has been Bozeman’s most prominent African-American citizen, Watson also has ethnic diversity in his background. He said one grandfather came from the Philippines and a grandmother came from Mexico.

School Board Chairman Gary Lusin said he’d done his own checking on Watson and found “Missoula hates to lose him.”

Watson taught math and science at East Anchorage High School from 1993 to 1998, was a middle school assistant principal in Anchorage from 1998 to 1999, a middle school associate principal in Great Falls from 1999 to 2001 and a middle school principal in Missoula from 2001 to 2005.

Twenty-six people applied for the job, which was advertised nationally, Miller said. The other three finalists were Tom Blakely, Three Forks High principal, Gary Kane, Park High principal, and Andrea Tribelhorn, assistant principal and athletics director at Fossil Ridge High in Fort Collins, Colo.

Watson will start his new job on July 1, but will start conferring right away with Saunders, Miller said. “He’s going to work out just great.”

Principal Godfrey Saunders has announced his resignation, effective at the end of the school year.

Superintendent Kirk Miller will recommend his choice for Saunders’ replacement at the meeting, which begins at 6 p.m. at Willson School.

In other business Monday the trustees are expected to:

• Receive and discuss a Long-Range Facility Planning Committee report on the annual review of the elementary and high school districts’ facilities master plan
• Receive an update on education bills and efforts in the Montana Legislature
• Discuss preliminary budget figures for the 2009-2010 school year
• And, consider a request for approval of a high school summer 2010 trip to France

The meeting is held in board room 122 at the Willson School. Public comment can be submitted electronically to trustees@bsd7.org.

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