Congratulations to Tom Redmon of Hamilton and Beth Walsh of East Helena for winning the Mathematics Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching. Tom teaches first grade at Daly Elementary. He serves on the MCTM board, facilitates STREAM Math Hub courses and is the co-lead of the Montana Elementary Math Community. Beth Walsh teaches 7th grade at East Valley Middle School. She is on the MCTM board and on the Helena Math Teachers' Circles lead team. Both are leaders in their community and in their classroom! Nominations for next year are open! Do you know a K–6th grade STEM teacher whose impact goes beyond the classroom?

Take our new Implementing Smarter Balanced Interim Assessments course on the Teacher Learning Hub. Interim assessments are flexible and open to all Montana educators and students. Interims give teachers and students experience with the types of questions on the Smarter Balanced Assessment, as well as provide valuable information for instruction. 

Smarter Balanced just released the Content Explorer site for educators to learn more about test development, the connection to standards, accessibility features and scoring guidelines.  

Lastly, Smarter Balanced created Starting Smarter, a website for Montana Parents. The site reviews how to interpret the score reports, allows parents to check out test questions and provides additional resources to support their child’s learning.