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…

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,…

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…

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…

Extracurricular activities are an important part of students' lives in small-town Montana. In 1994, the Montana state legislature cut its share of funding to public schools by 4 percent, raising concerns about what would be cut and whether extracurricular activities would be affected. A survey of 228 Montana school districts (47 percent of total)…

Three small rural school districts in Montana and Wyoming used alternate school day scheduling to make time for staff and curriculum development inservice programs. The schedule of one short and four long days delivered the instructional time of 175 6-hour days each year. Benefits of alternate scheduling included time for regular inservice…

In Montana, there are 151 small rural schools that constitute elementary independent districts with either a supervising teacher or a teaching principal as the head of the school. In fall 1998, a survey of all 151 schools examined enrollments, budgets, staff, salaries, and benefits. Enrollments ranged from 2 to 174 students; 83 schools had fewer…

Previous research in California, Alaska, and West Virginia has suggested that school or school district size may influence student achievement indirectly by mediating the effects of socioeconomic status (SES) on achievement. The Matthew Project is replicating the key analyses of the West Virginia study in four strategically chosen states: Georgia,…

This report represents data collected by a mail survey comparing budgets, levies, and enrollments of small, rural schools (Class "C") in Montana for fiscal year 1991-1992. The average enrollment of 82 elementary schools was 128 students; the average enrollment of 82 high schools was 58. The average total enrollment of Class "C"…

Two-thirds of Montana's school districts are rural, and most students attend schools with enrollments under 300. Such recent trends as peer tutoring, multigrade classrooms, and project-based learning have always been practiced in these small schools. One small community's successful effort to save its school, classroom practices in one-room…