Rep. Connie Keogh is tackling a teacher shortage within the teacher shortage with House Bill 151

A bill introduced this week aims to ensure that a unique subset of educators doesn’t get left out of the prominent teacher recruitment and retention discussions before the 2025 Legislature.

Lawmakers are already discussing specific methods to raise the low wages driving Montana’s teacher shortage, and Gov. Greg Gianforte has requested $100 million to help pay for those efforts.

One position that conversation hasn’t focused on, however, is the certified educational interpreters who work to help deaf and hard-of-hearing students access classroom instruction — an omission Rep. Connie Keogh, D-Missoula, said House Bill 151 looks to remedy.

The bill, which arose from interim discussions and drew no opposition in a hearing Wednesday, certainly won’t be the biggest news of the 2025 session. Nor will it generate a note of fiscal impact at the scale of this spring’s big-ticket education budget items. But not all of the changes the Legislature pursues are earth-shattering. Sometimes a lawmaker’s push for progress just boils down to a few new lines of legal code and a nod to a group that may have gone overlooked.

—Alex Sakariassen