“Montanans honor their word, and the Superintendent and School Board Trustees have failed to do so by continually violating signed agreements” - Doug Robison - BEA President

On June 24th 2021, Superintendent Upham signed his name to a Memorandum of Agreement with 3 local Unions in Billings Montana. The (BEA) Billings Education Association, The (BCEA) Billings Classified Education Association and the MFPE Local 7770. 

The Memorandum of Agreement Amendment had an effective Date of June 20,2021 and expires June 15th, 2022. The Issue was Clarification and Modification of the School District’s Masking Requirements. 

Part B of this Amendment reads: “All Individuals on school grounds may wear a face covering.” 

The previous MOA language read:  “All individuals on school grounds shall wear a face covering."

This Amendment to the  MOA replaced the earlier MOA and changed the terminology from “Shall” to “May”, in other words from required/mandatory to optional.

Shall is defined as “An imperative command; has a duty to or is required to.” 

The word “may” is an expression of possibility, a permissive choice to act or not, and ordinarily implies some degree of discretion. This contrasts with the word “shall,” which is generally used to indicate a mandatory provision.

Superintendent Upham signed this agreement with the 3 local unions. By signing this document he entered into a contractual agreement with his signature. The language in this agreement is clear. He agreed to change from a mandatory mask policy to an optional mask policy. 

On August 21st, 2021 - less than 2 days prior to the start of the new school year Superintendent Upham released an announcement that he would now be enforcing District Policy 1905. “I am reimplementing required masking for all students, employees, and visitors during the normal school day at our K-12 schools.” - Superintendent Greg Upham. Teachers and staff were blindsided by this announcement with no prior communication from the District Office.

The Superintendent of Billings Public Schools, a district of around 16,500 students plus all staff was making a change that impacted everyone less than 2 days prior to the start of school based on a covid-19 “outbreak” of 10% of 1 high school football team.

As parents and employees of Billings Public Schools and members of this community we have tried to be heard by the Superintendent and the Board of Trustees only to be ignored time and time again. We are launching this petition to let our local Board of Trustees know that in Montana we honor our signature. We don’t sign documents we don’t intend to honor. The Superintendent has policy 1905 which gives him the authority to enforce masking at his discretion, however enforcing masking while in an existing agreement that makes masking optional with the 3 Local unions is not how we conduct ourselves in Billings. 

The Superintendent also used threatening language against the staff for failure to “enforce and comply” with the Mask Directive. The Superintendent is creating a hostile work environment for our teachers and staff of Billings Public Schools. 

We are asking the Superintendent to honor his signature and stand by the agreement he signed with his own hand with the 3 Local Unions. It is disgraceful that he and the school board are being called out by the BEA president for violating signed agreements. If he will not honor his own signature on this agreement, how can we trust him on future agreements? He has lost the trust of the community and his own School District. 

Sign and Share this petition “Out with Upham” to let your voice be heard. We are signing this petition to demand that Superintendent Upham honors his agreement or resigns from his position along with the Board of Trustees resignations for neglecting their duly elected power by giving one person sole responsibility to take this action.