Increasing teacher pay, finding ways to get more money to school districts and boosting students’ early math skills are on the agenda as Montana legislators plan to take up a broad range of proposals this year addressing the K-12 system’s most chronic challenges.

On the funding front, several House Republicans have already signaled plans to tackle one of the most pressing education issues in the state: teacher pay. Low starting salaries for early career educators are a driving factor in Montana’s ongoing teacher shortage, making it hard for many local districts to recruit and retain staff. 

Montana Free Press wrote extensively last month about the still-evolving STARS Act, a proposal shepherded by Rep. Llew Jones, R-Conrad, that aims to use Montana’s school funding formula as a vehicle to increase wages for early career educators. 

In an adjacent move, Rep. David Bedey, R-Hamilton, the incoming chair of the Legislature’s education budget subcommittee, has introduced a bill to diffuse the local funding burden on property taxpayers by levying that support countywide rather than from taxpayers in specific school districts.

Recent bill drafts also shed light on how House Democrats are approaching the issue of adequate K-12 education funding. One proposal calls for directing revenue from the state lottery straight to the Office of Public Instruction for distribution to public schools, while another seeks to increase per-pupil state payment rates for sixth graders to match rates for other middle-school grades. 

In a virtual press call with state media last month, Rep. Connie Keogh, D-Missoula, acknowledged that enhancing funding for schools without overly burdening local taxpayers will be a “delicate balance” but said she’s confident lawmakers can work with other education leaders to achieve a solution.

“There’s plenty of money in the budget,” Rep. Mary Caferro, D-Helena, said during the same call. “The budget is a matter of priorities. It expresses our values, and Democrats value public education.”

Outside the funding conversation, Democrats in both chambers have at turns drawn policy inspiration from conversations that played out during the legislative interim. Rep. Melissa Romano, D-Helena, vice chair of the House Education Committee, requested a bill to expand pre-kindergarten academic interventions to include early childhood numeracy. 

The proposal builds off last session’s early childhood literacy bill, carried by Republican Rep. Brad Barker, of Roberts. It addresses concerns raised by state education leaders regarding declining student performance on statewide math assessments and increased demand for remedial math courses at in-state colleges and universities. 

Legislators on both sides of the aisle last fall expressed interest in policy targeting early numeracy. The issue is also high on newly elected state Superintendent Susie Hedalen’s list of policy priorities for the coming months.

“As a former kindergarten teacher, we talked about ‘numbers sense’ a lot and having that understanding of mathematics, those basic foundations,” said Hedalen, a Republican who has worked as a Montana teacher and superintendent and was vice chair of the state Board of Public Education. “When the early literacy bill passed [in 2023] and we started these programs, everyone realized that math is also one of those key components to students being successful.”

Hedalen added that, in addition to early numeracy, the Legislature is poised to take up the issue of increased costs to local districts incurred as a result of recent guidance from the Board of Public Education. Last year, Hedalen and other board members unanimously adopted a resolution encouraging school districts to add a third year of math to their high school graduation requirements. 

While existing math classes and offerings through the Montana Digital Academy should give most students ample opportunity to meet such a requirement, Hedalen said, she’s met with business leaders and the state Department of Labor and Industry to discuss crafting courses tailored to students pursuing trades-based education, an effort she’s hopeful will attract state funding.

In a recent interview with MTFP, Sen. John Fuller, R-Kalispell, echoed the prediction that early numeracy and teacher pay will be prominent on the Legislature’s education agenda. Fuller said he also anticipates policies dealing with school choice and the powers of public school boards will feature heavily before the Senate Education and Cultural Resources Committee, which he chairs this session. 

Fuller noted that the Montana Constitution and its deference to local control will likely drive much of the debate around school boards. As for school choice, Republican lawmakers have already submitted proposals to expand eligibility for state-funded education savings accounts to all public school students and to grant a state commission tasked with overseeing publicly funded “community choice” schools the authority to seek state funding of its own. Both bills build on policies passed last session, which brought about some of the most significant advancements for the school choice movement in Montana in decades. 

Other bill language and draft titles suggest the policy conversation will touch on classrooms more directly. One still-percolating Democratic request calls for the creation of a “teachers’ bill of rights,” while a Republican-led proposal aims to assert teachers’ authority to “maintain a positive classroom learning environment” and codify school protocols for the treatment of disruptive students. 

Individual lawmakers are also pursuing bills to mandate the display of the Ten Commandments throughout public school buildings and to grant parents the explicit right to seek the deletion of their child’s educational data from OPI’s statewide K-12 data system, setting the stage for debates over the legal nuances of public education.

With a wide array of education proposals in the offing this session, Hedalen said she intends to play an active role in the Legislature’s debates and will have “no qualms” taking a firm stance on specific measures that may adversely impact students and educators — a marked contrast from the no-advocacy approach of her predecessor, Republican Elsie Arntzen. Based on her own policy priorities, Hedalen is poised to back any efforts to improve student safety, enhance student mental health support and bolster funding for school infrastructure. The tenor of conversations among state leaders over the past year and a half have Hedalen feeling optimistic about the Legislature’s appetite for supporting public education.

“We don’t expect to see as many education bills as last session, I think that was definitely a record,” Hedalen said. “People have done a lot of the work through the interim, so we’ll be able to make more movement and I think there’ll be less controversy this time.”

Much of that movement will likely happen through adjustments and additions to how Montana pays for the education of its youth. Republican and Democratic lawmakers have already expressed a shared interest in reexamining details of the state’s education funding formula, itself a deeply complex topic, and Montana School Boards Association Executive Director Lance Melton said several related proposals are taking shape to address local budget gaps driven by high inflation in recent years. 

Melton noted a growing acknowledgment among legislators of the important role elected school boards play in crafting timely school policies that reflect their individual communities, and said he hopes lawmakers this session continue to embrace policies that promote strategic local action over those that seek a fast statewide fix to a complex challenge.

“We have some fast fixes out there, people that come in and say, ‘I think that we need to have the following uniform rule across the whole state,’” Melton said. “We gently remind people in those circumstances that we continue to believe that the best governance impacting our communities is the governance that’s exercised where you can change it.”