Montana School District Sued Over Building Sale To Catholic School

In Missoula, Montana yesterday, the organization Good Schools Missoula announced that it had filed suit against the Missoula County Public Schools (MCPS) to challenge the lease and subsequent sale of the former Roosevelt Elementary School to the Loyola Sacred Heart High School Foundation for it to use as a Catholic school. The Missoulian today reported that the suit named MCPS, the foundation, and five individual MCPS trustees as defendants. The complaint alleges that the arrangements violated Art. X, Sec. 6 of the Montana Constitution that prohibits the state from directly or indirectly appropriating funds or making a grant of property to aid any sectarian institution. The suit claims that MCPS set the original lease rate to Loyola Sacred Heart Foundation at a quarter of fair market value, that it allowed the Foundation to extend its five-year lease while considering the sale, that MCPS rushed the sale process in a way that discouraged other bids, that the bid that was accepted was lower than another bid that had been submitted, and that the board had not properly accounted for the funds received in the sale.