Helena school district gives away unused furniture

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Helena Public Schools opened the doors of its historic Seventh Avenue Gym, now used to store excess furniture, to members of the public Thursday, allowing them to take as much of the old classroom furnishings as they needed.

The school district is in discussions to lease the facility to Queen City Football Club and needed to clear out the tables, chairs, desks, cork boards and filing cabinets piled on the basketball court and in the adjacent rooms.

People peruse excess furniture from Helena Public Schools during a giveaway event at the Seventh Avenue Gym on Thursday morning.

“Everything in this building is excessive furniture that’s no longer usable by the district,” Helena Public Schools Director of Facilities Todd Verrill said. “For years we’ve moved all this stuff around. In the last five years, it’s been moved five times.”

This stuff amounts to, off the top of Verrill’s head, upward of 800 molded plastic chairs, 30 tables and hundreds of student desks. Old elementary student-height library bookshelves labeled “NONFICTION,” adult-size desks and old computer carts lined the walls of the gym.

“We’re just so excited to finally lease this building out, and for it to be used as a gym again,” Verrill said. “It’s also the perfect opportunity to get rid of this stuff that is not needed.”

The Helena Public Schools board of trustees approved the giveaway during its Aug. 15 meeting.

Verrill said most of the furniture came from Jim Darcy, Bryant and Central elementary schools following a previous round of furniture upgrades.

When asked if offering the unused furniture to teachers in the district had been considered, Verrill said “Yes, that happened.”

“Our custodial staff always works closely with our teachers,” he said.

People peruse excess furniture from Helena Public Schools during a giveaway event at the Seventh Avenue Gym on Thursday morning.

Helena Public Schools spokeswoman Karen Ogden said some district teachers did take some of the excess furniture for their classrooms, but that the hope is to rid the district of the old furniture, not return it to the rotation.

“The goal here is efficiency and disposing of furniture in a cost-effective way,” Ogden said, adding that the decision was made to give the furniture away because the district has tried unsuccessfully to sell such items.

“The cost of putting on the sale, the staffing, the accounting, would be more — given the value of these items—than the district would make,” she said.

For Brittany MacDougal, a mother of four children, three of whom she homeschools, the furniture giveaway and the subsequent lease agreement were “huge” for her family.

MacDougal said her family lives frugally to allow her to stay home and teach the children. She said prior to Thursday, they all work on the day’s lessons on the floor of their bedroom-turned-classroom. MacDougal said now they will “have a place we can all gather around to do our lessons together.”

She rolled the table, about 5 feet in diameter, on its side out of the gym and down the sidewalk to the family minivan, her students in tow.

She said her 9-year-old son Kane MacDougal plays for one of the Queen City Football Club teams, and that the move into its new location is exciting.

She said Kane tends to struggle when he can’t play soccer during the winter, “but with this, he gets to play almost year-round.”

The club is proposing a 30-year lease of the gym, but stated it would consider a 20-year lease if the school district contributes financially to the capital improvements.

The club also proposes covering the cost of all capital improvements, maintenance, deferred maintenance, operating expenses and taxes if afforded a 30-year lease.

The club has asked that the district ostensibly donate the use of the facility with a monthly lease rate of $1 a month.

Verrill compared it to the city of Helena’s agreement with Grandstreet Theatre during the Aug. 15 trustees meeting.

The club is proposing a phased build-out with the demolition or repair of the smokestack, structural repair of the mezzanine, exterior repairs, ADA upgrades and interior painting, among other to-dos, completed in the first phase, scheduled to conclude as soon as October.

AshLy Tubbs, left, and Riley Tubbs haul out a piece of furniture during a giveaway event at the Seventh Avenue Gym of excess Helena Public Schools furniture on Thursday morning.

Phase two is slated to occur from 2024 to 2033 and would include the locker room, classroom, office and gym improvements, as well as exterior and interior signage.

Trustee Terry Beaver advocated during the Aug. 15 meeting for demolishing the gym for Central Elementary parking.

Superintendent Rex Weltz was eventually given permission by the board on a 4-1 vote to enter into negotiations with the soccer club.

Facing a massive budget deficit, Weltz moved to lease not only the gym, but also the Ray Bjork Learning Center to drum up revenue and tackle deferred maintenance for the district.

The district is in negotiations with St. Peter’s Health to lease the learning center for use as a daycare facility for hospital employees’ children.

“Although these are hard conversations, they’re ones that are not going to go away,” Weltz said earlier. “As we have other facilities that aren’t being used, I’m going to bring it back to this group and we’re going to continue to look because what I’m not going to do is sit on this multi-million dollar deficit and have facilities vacant while we’re looking at (potentially cutting) programs for kids.”

Nolan Lister is a reporter at the Helena Independent Record with an emphasis on local government.

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Stunning images have emerged of a rare blue supermoon which dazzled stargazers across the globe on Wednesday night. It could be seen illuminat…