October 1, 2018
Legislative Priorities
The OPI is finalizing our legislative requests for the 2019 legislature. This includes both budgetary and non-budgetary items. In the next few weeks, finalized education budget requests will be available. The OPI is seeking to maintain and restore education funding levels including statutorily required inflationary increases as well as an inflationary increase for special education and funding for CTE/Vo-Ed programs.
Additional legislative requests which are still being developed include:
- Legislation to prevent the aiding and abetting of sexual abuse of children
- Legislation directing one PIR day to be devoted to school safety
- Legislation to allow certain inter-state agency data sharing to better provide opportunities for students
- Legislation to more evenly distribute BASE aid funding to schools
School Safety
Check out the news coverage of Superintendent Arntzen’s back to school safety message here
Assessment Results
Statewide assessment results for the 2017-2018 school year are available and Superintendent Arntzen sat down with KULR 8 to discuss the results.
Teacher of the Year
Dylan Huisken, a middle school social studies teacher from Bonner, has been selected as the 2019 Montana Teacher of the Year! Mr. Huisken will go on to represent Montana in the National Teacher of the Year program. Congratulations to Mr. Huisken as well as the other two finalists: Linda Rost of Baker and Matt Schrowe of Red Lodge.
OPI Calendar
The OPI is in the process of posting our external events on the state’s public calendar.
Superintendent’s September Events
- Recurring Land Board, Board of Public Education, Board of Regents, Interim Education Committee, and statewide education advocacy group meetings
- Back to school visits in East Helena, Bozeman, Hardin, Dillon, Bonner, and Billings
- Montana American Indian Heritage Day and Constitution Day events