The Montana SLDS first received a Statewide Longitudinal Data System grant in 2009. This Institute of Education Sciences award allows states to build their infrastructure, dissemination, and research capacity. This is done through promoting linkages within state government, school districts, and universities. Our data portal, GEMS, is the premier source of education data within Montana. School districts rely on GEMS daily as this is the OPI resource for reporting and transparency. In 2019, OPI received a supplemental grant to study the uses of alternative poverty measures. In doing so, OPI focused on the research uses of the alternative poverty measures in comparison to Free and Reduced Priced Meals data.
In 2021, OPI received another Institute for Education Sciences grant focused on building the research capacity of the SLDS. This grant enabled research on the Montana Early Warning System, a predictive analytics tool used in dropout prevention. This tool was found to be accurate in its predictions. Participating districts that made full use of the system, and showed that there is a strong association between subgroup performance and graduation. Native students, in particular, were 7% more likely to graduate if they had an EWS score.