Missoula Schools Excellence

"AYP results hide the facts. Student achievement is improving." Montana Superintendent of Public Instruction Denise Juneau

The teachers, selected from about 500 applicants, will get student loan repayment assistance of up to $3,000 a year for the next four years – for a total of up to $12,000.

“It’s our teachers and counselors and the community working together to make graduation a priority,” Apostle said.

Others in the district agree, but at least one other factor – better tracking of missing students – makes the story more complex.

During the academic year, meals at school are an important source of nutrition for students from low-income families. But the food and the need for it don’t go away in the summer months.

Missoula’s superintendent now makes $50,000 more per year than the governor of Montana.

This summer, area children can eat lunch for free at the following Missoula schools: Russell, Lowell, Hawthorne, Franklin and C.S. Porter.

Missoula County Public Schools recently won a grant from the U.S. State Department to host the teacher as part of the Teachers of Critical Languages Program.

The International Baccalaureate program, which was founded in Switzerland in 1971, is a rigorous educational experience that focuses on developing "inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect."

MCPS is the first school district in the state to move toward the "21st century schools" concept, which will radically alter not just the structure of the school day, but the structure of classrooms and teaching concepts from kindergarten to 12th grade.

MCPS, with superintendent Alex Apostle and his administration leading the way, is sold on the concept of "21st century education," which officials say will revolutionize teaching and learning for decades to come, realigning class schedules, classroom structure and much of the way in which teachers interact with students, and students interact with each other.