Montana Education Excellence

The grant focuses on the state’s two-year colleges as well as getting students still in high school pointed toward college.

UM administrators also will see no increase in their salaries, said executive vice president Jim Foley, with one possible exception – President George Dennison.

Thomas has been a faculty member at Montana Western for 16 years. In that time he helped transform the institution into the first and only public university in the United States to offer block scheduling. Under this scheduling system, students take one class at a time, three hours per day for 18 days earning the same credits over a year as students do in traditional multiple-course scheduling models. Called Experience One, it’s now in its fifth year.

"Identifying these shortage areas helps us recruit the right people for the right places," said
Denise Juneau, Montana Superintendent of Public Instruction. “It is important that we do what we
can to keep great teachers here in Montana so they can inspire our young leaders and help build a
brighter future.”

The plan recommends cutting $1.4 million in personnel costs and $1.9 million in operations. That may mean fewer adjunct professors, less overtime pay, increased teaching loads and allowing vacant jobs to go dark.

"My girlfriend’s parents are the reason I’m here," Albert said. "I’m pretty proud of myself. I feel great about where I’m going right now."

"Our public education system does so much for every community and for our state. Public education truly is the cornerstone of our democracy and the bedrock of economic development in this state."

Billings has fallen behind in maintaining and upgrading its buildings. It is time for Billings Public Schools to move forward with a plan to start addressing deferred maintenance in elementary, middle and high schools next year.

MSU hopes to double the number of incoming WWAMI students, and to keep students in MSU for their second year of schooling, while also taking some televideo classes from UW’s School of Medicine.

Students did community service projects across Bozeman as part of the Montana Behavior Initiative Youth Days, a program run by the state Office of Public Instruction to promote community, citizenship, leadership and learning by serving.