Education leaders: Missoula grappling with enrollment declines, teacher shortage ‘crisis’

A few dozen Missoulians gathered Thursday night in the basement of the St. Paul Lutheran Church to hear from local education leaders about current challenges facing public schools — including declining enrollment, federal funding changes and ideological policies from the state legislature.

The town hall was hosted by former State Superintendent Denise Juneau and included Missoula County Public Schools Superintendent Micah Hill, Hellgate Elementary Special Education Director Brendan Brown and Grace Decker with the advocacy group the Montana Quality Education Coalition.

“Politics in our education system and classroom is so difficult when people are trying to, what I describe as, a ‘manufactured crisis’ about what’s going on in our classrooms, instead of actually coming into our classrooms and seeing what our teachers are doing and the amazing work that they do,” Hill said.