This article reports the findings of a study commissioned by the Montana Small Schools Alliance to explore the challenges and sustainability practices of frontier schools. A Montana frontier school is defined as a school district with 200 or fewer students with its attendant community located in a county with five or fewer people per square mile.…

Much of the Northwest Region (Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington) is rural in nature. A characteristic of the extractive economies such as timber, agriculture, mining, and fisheries is that they are generally located in small communities isolated by distances. While schools in these communities face the same challenges as those in…

According to the Alliance for Excellent Education (AEE), nationally one-third of students, 1.3 million each year, fail to graduate. The AEE suggests that these low rates have for too long been "obscured... by inadequate accountability systems at state and federal levels." Montana's accountability system is a case in point. Dependent on…

The Montana School Accreditation Standards require every Montana school to conduct a self-evaluation at least every 10 years. For some small Montana schools this has been an informal process and often more anecdotal than data driven. Using the Montana Statewide Education Profile as a model, a committee of county superintendents, teachers, and…

The design and implementation of a rotating class schedule which was put into effect in the Charlo High School, Charlo, Montana in September 1969 is discussed in this paper. The schedule, described in this report, consists of a 75-minute period followed by 2, 60-minute periods in the morning and 4, 45-minute afternoon periods. The program…

INDIVIDUALIZATION OF INSTRUCTION IS A DISTINCT ADVANTAGE OF A SMALL, RURAL HIGH SCHOOL. FIVE FACTORS OPERANT IN INDIVIDUALIZATION ARE THE DIRECT GOAL-CENTERED INFLUENCES OF THE COMMUNITY, TEACHER PREPARATION, THE CLASSROOM ENVIRONMENT, USE OF THE PHYSICAL PLANT, AND OPTIMAL USE OF SCHOOL FUNDS. SPECIFIC INSTRUCTIONAL INNOVATIONS IN MOCCASIN,…

Previous studies found that the small size of schools or school districts mitigated the negative influence of poverty on academic achievement in California, Alaska, and West Virginia. The Matthew Project extends this research in four additional states selected to provide varied settings: Ohio, Georgia, Texas, and Montana. Data from each state were…

No Child Left Behind requires that all teachers have a degree in every subject they teach or pass an exam that proves they are "highly qualified" to teach that subject. A story from one Montana town demonstrates how the law is unrealistic for rural and small schools where one teacher may teach many subjects and where teachers are already…

A visit to a Montana one-room school reveals the characteristics and advantages of one-room schools. Small schools are crucial to student success in early grades and students from small schools tend to outperform their peers. Large schools are borrowing features such as multiage classrooms, peer tutoring, and interdisciplinary projects as they…

Traces decline of one-room schools from 24,000 in 1959 to about 840 today. Reports findings from 1984 survey of 643 surviving one-room schools in Nebraska, Montana, South Dakota, California, and Wyoming. Includes data on enrollments, teacher qualifications and responsibilities, student achievement, and school facilities/equipment. (NEC)

Describes results of a 1981 survey of 162 small rural schools in Montana. Notes that teachers cited educational finance as the main rural education problem and that Montana's rural teachers receive few incentives. Reports results pertaining to preparing teachers for rural settings, curriculum development, school-community relationships, and…

Small, sometimes multi-cultural, rural schools need specialized preservice teacher education programs to prepare teachers. After outlining the classroom, school, and sociocultural characteristics affecting a teacher's success and survival in a rural community, this paper discusses the apparent lack of rural content in teacher preparation programs…

A Montana teacher in a very small high school describes how SIMMS Integrated Mathematics has helped students to develop better problem-solving skills and better oral and written communication skills, has contributed to increased student enrollment in a fourth year of high school mathematics, and has taught students to use technology tools in…

A survey of 148 rural independent, multigrade elementary school districts in Montana examined how districts compensate their teachers and whether or not that compensation has kept pace with larger school districts. The results indicate that rural school teachers in many cases work for less money than any other group of teachers in the state. Only…

Test responses of students in grades six and 11 were examined to determine the relationship between school size and learning in the affective domain, i.e., character, cooperation, and attitudes toward school, communication, and change. Results indicated that students in smaller schools have more positive attitudes toward their schools and…