Belgrade School District #44 — MT
1. Snapshot
Belgrade is structurally unusual: Montana operates separate K-8 elementary districts and 9-12 high school districts as distinct legal entities. The “Belgrade School District #44” in the spreadsheet refers to the combined administrative unit. NCES tracks them separately:
- Belgrade Elem (3003290) — 2,269 students, 4 schools, Town-Fringe, Gallatin County, K-8
- Belgrade HS (3003330) — 958 students, 1 school, Town-Fringe, 9-12
This brief uses the Elementary district as anchor because the $60.5M bond was for a new elementary school. Per-pupil expenditure $18,697 (Elem) — high in absolute terms, but Montana’s small districts and local mill structure produce this number for most rural/small-town districts.
Geographic context: Belgrade is part of the Gallatin Valley growth corridor (Bozeman metro) — the fastest-growing region in Montana. Population pressure on schools is the explicit bond rationale.
2. Why this was a hard sell — community context (ACS)
ACS community profile not available for Belgrade Elem because the Census ACS School District tables only cover unified districts. This is a real data gap for the bond conversation — voters and the district had no easy population/income/home-value composite to anchor on.
What we can infer from adjacent geographies (Gallatin County): - Median household income ~$74K (county) - Median home value $464K (Bozeman MSA) — sharply higher than 5 years ago - Population growth ~3%/yr — among highest in MT - Newly arrived homeowners are paying inflated home prices and inheriting prior-resident bond cycles — that’s the tax-fatigue dynamic in growth regions
3. Peer comparison
Top peers identified via MCP (default weights + plantOps emphasis):
| Peer district | State | Enrollment | Per-pupil | Plant ops/pp | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adel-DeSoto-Minburn | IA | 2,278 | $17,730 | $1,051 | Town-Fringe, near-identical enrollment |
| St. Peter | MN | 2,107 | $15,672 | $1,039 | Comparable peer |
| Lehighton Area SD | PA | 2,114 | $18,299 | $1,203 | Higher plant ops investment |
| Cloquet | MN | 2,529 | $15,974 | $961 | Town-Fringe peer |
| Talawanda City | OH | 2,875 | $18,318 | — | Similar town-fringe |
| Heard County | GA | 2,220 | $19,018 | — | Rural-distant |
| Brock ISD | TX | 2,169 | $18,692 | — | Rural-distant |
| 3 redacted “Peer District” entries (MI × 2, IL) | Likely FMX customers — outreach team to validate |
4. The gap story (what the data would have shown voters)
Belgrade’s bond was a capacity ask, not a condition ask — and the data supports the capacity argument quietly:
- Plant operations spending: $1,016.98 / pupil vs national median $1,324 — modestly below median. They aren’t neglecting existing buildings; they’re running out of room.
- Capital construction outlay (FY2020): $15.94M — actively investing. The 2019 voter-approved project was underway when this 2024 ask came. Voters likely felt “we just paid for one.”
- Per-pupil instruction $6,010 — the lowest in the peer set ($5,867 to $9,778 range). Instructional spending is constrained, plant ops are constrained — Montana’s funding floor is the real bind.
- Total expulsions: 47 — sharply above the peer median (0). 45 of those were at Belgrade Middle School. This is the most striking single number in the data and points to school climate / capacity pressure exactly where a new building would relieve the load.
- District has only 3.6 counselor FTE across 4 schools (2,269 students → 1 counselor per 630 kids). Per-school: Belgrade Middle has 1 counselor for 978 kids.
- The 2019 bond did pass — that established the project as a multi-phase build. Voters approved Phase 1 and rejected the funding to finish it. That’s a trust dynamic, not a want dynamic.
5. Bond history (Ballotpedia + news)
- 2019: Original elementary expansion bond, passed (per superintendent statement)
- May 2024: $60.5M completion bond, failed 4,202–1,480 (~74% No)
- May 2025: Two mill-levy measures (HS + MS, ~$165K/yr) both failed
Belgrade has now lost 3 consecutive funding asks at three different scales — and the district reports having passed only 2 abbreviated levies in the past 11 years (as of 2019). This is a community with a chronic funding-vs-need dispute, not a one-off failure.
6. What voters / opposition actually said
- Superintendent Dede Frothingham: “The Belgrade community is very supportive of their schools, and that hasn’t changed from yesterday to today. We recognize the challenge of moving forward with a large bond during this time.”
- Frothingham, on financial pressure on taxpayers: “the financial pressure voters themselves are under” — explicit acknowledgment of inflation/tax-fatigue dynamics in Gallatin Valley.
- Frothingham elsewhere: without a new elementary building, “we can’t last much longer.” Strongest urgency framing on record but did not translate to vote.
Notably, Bozeman (next door) passed its school levies the same day — same county, same growth pressure, same tax environment. The difference is not the community; it’s the campaign and the data.
7. What we could have told them
- “Belgrade Middle School expelled 45 students last year. Peer middle schools of our size expelled zero. That’s a building overwhelmed, not a behavior problem — a new elementary frees the middle school.” This is the single most powerful data point in the profile and the campaign never used it.
- “Bozeman just passed their levies. We are running the same growth math. The difference between yes and no isn’t the ask — it’s the building plan voters can see.” Direct peer comparison to a same-county success story.
- “This bond completes the project you already approved in 2019. We are not asking for more — we are asking for the rest.” Continuity framing.
- Counselor data: 1 counselor per 630 students; 1 per 978 at the middle school. New building lowers the ratio. National recommended is 1:250.
- Per-pupil instruction is the lowest among comparable peers. Honest framing: “We’re already running lean on instruction. Without new capacity, the per-pupil number gets worse, not better, because growth dilutes.”
8. FMX outreach hook
Belgrade is a strong but lower-urgency outreach candidate — they’re in a structural funding bind that no single facilities-data investment will solve. The natural angle is the next campaign, not the current operations question. Lead with Frothingham directly (Sup) given the small district size and the absence of a named CFO/operations lead in the spreadsheet. Opener: “Bozeman next door just passed their levies — they run their facilities portfolio in [comparable FMX customer]. We can give you a per-building cost-per-square-foot benchmark before your next ask, plus a side-by-side with Adel-DeSoto and the 3 redacted peers in MI/IL who track this same way. The middle-school expulsion number alone is your bond pitch — we just need to put the buildings behind it.” The Montana-specific peer pool may be thin; the broader Town-Fringe small-town segment is where the proof points live.