Accreditation Standards and Procedures
Montana School Accreditation Standards and Procedures Manual
Standards for School Accreditation as per 20-7-101 MCA: (1) Standards of accreditation for all schools shall be adopted by the board of public education upon the recommendations of the superintendent of public instruction.
- Revised Chapter 55 Standards of Accreditation – Effective 7/1/2013
- Chapter 55 Standards of Accreditation
- Chapter 53 Content Standards
- Chapter 54 Content Standards and Performance Descriptors
- Chapter 56 Assessment
- Chapter 16 Special Education
Accreditation Forms
Variances to Standards Application Effective 7/1/2013
We’re here to help. Contact us.
Teri Wing, Accreditation Compliance Specialist 406.444.4436
Effie Benoit,, Accreditation Data Specialist, 406.444.2410
Variances to Standards
Variances to Standards, Effective July 1, 2013
The revised ARM 10.55.604 Variances to Standards rule allows a local board of trustees to apply… for a variance to a standard or a section of standards, excluding standards stating statutory criteria, standards pertaining to educator licensure or endorsement, and content standards.
The intent of the revised Variance to Standards is to 1) provide options and innovation to school districts to help ensure educational quality and accountability, and 2) create a pre-appointed review board that will make recommendations to the Superintendent of Public Instruction for approval, modification, or rejection of all variance to standard applications.
- Variances to Standards Application Process
- Variances to Standards Application – Due July 17, 2013
- Variances to Standards Draft Rubric
- ARM 10.55.604 - Variances to Standards
- Variances to Standards – Implementation Timeline 2013-15
- Review Board
We’re here to help. Contact us.
Teri Wing, Accreditation Compliance Specialist 406.444.4436
Effie Benoit,, Accreditation Data Specialist, 406.444.2410
Montana Educator Preparation Programs
Montana PEPPS Standards & Procedures Manual
Institutional Report .docx version
Montana has 9 post-secondary campuses offering teacher education programs that have been approved by the Montana Board of Education for teacher, administrator, specialist certification in Montana. Each institution offers its own combination of programs. Both historical and current combinations of programs can be accessed through this site.
Instructions:
- Select the institution.
- Current approved programs will have a "yes" in the "if still approved" column and/or a date of last on-site review.
- Historical (discontinued) programs will have the last year of approval in the "if still approved" column and may or may not have a date of last on-site review.
- If a program is still current as a major but not as a minor (and vice versa), "minor 19--" will be in the "if still approved" column (the last year it was approved as a minor) and a date will be in the last on-site review column (last review of the current major program.)
- If you have specific questions regarding the institutions' education programs, please contact the certification official for the respective institution(s). Contact information is provided.
- On-site reviews occur on a rotating schedule with every campus being reviewed every five years. Provisional approval may be awarded by the Board of Public Education on recommendation from the Teacher Education Division of the Office of Public Instruction for programs instituted between on-site reviews.
Sec. 207. ACCOUNTABILITY FOR PROGRAMS THAT PREPARE TEACHERS
This legislation calls for a State Report Card on the Quality of Teacher Preparation. It requests states to provide a description of the teacher certification and licensure assessments, and any other certification and licensure requirements, used by the State. It asks for the percentage of teaching candidates who passed each of the assessments used by the State for teacher certification and licensure, disaggregated and ranked, by the teacher preparation program in that State from which the teacher candidate received the candidate's most recent degree, which shall be made available widely and publicly. It asks for information on the extent to which teachers in the State are given waivers of State certification or licensure requirements, including the proportion of such teachers distributed across high- and low-poverty school districts and across subject areas.
An initial report was due April 7, 1999, giving basic information about the state's certification, which in Montana includes the only state mandated testing requirement. Following this, the state was to establish (with the cooperation of appropriate institutions) a procedures report which was due October 7, 2000.
An unexpected complication with the law was the absence of definitions and the unanticipated variety of state rules, laws and assessments (varying from none to many). It took nearly a year of meetings to determine how the desired goal of the legislation might be collected. A set of guidelines for implementing Title II was not available until January 2000.
The act includes penalties for states and institution for failure to comply. "Fines.--In addition to the actions authorized in section 487(c), the Secretary may impose a fine not to exceed $25,000 on an institution of higher education for failure to provide the information described in this subsection in a timely or accurate manner."
'In order to receive funds under this Act, a State, not later than 2 years after the date of enactment of the Higher Education Amendments of 1998, shall have in place a procedure to identify, and assist, through the provision of technical assistance, low-performing programs of teacher preparation within institutions of higher education..." This is the context for the attached report, dated October 5, 2000.