The Learning Hub

Early Learning

The Early Learning Series

October 8, 2025, 4:00 to 5:00 (Teams Link)*

• Numeracy (1 PDU)

October 22, 2025, 4:00-5:00 (Teams Link)*

• Community of Practice- Role-alike discussion on Numeracy (2 PDUs)

*These events are designed for the learner to attend both sessions

Montana Early Learning

Visit our Google Site to find resources and links for professional learning opportunities. The site is growing everyday and we are excited to share it with you!

Home-Based Program

We have updated the process for requesting Waterford licenses for the 2025-26 school year.

1. The district representative will indicate on Data Collection #2 that their district/school will offer the home-based program for the 25/26 school year.
2. Students with an eligibility record, enrollment in a home-based calendar, and who have the home-based early learning box checked on their enrollment in Infinite Campus are eligible for a Waterford license.
3. OPI will generate a weekly report of student eligibility records and allocate Waterford licenses to districts on a first-come, first-served basis.
4. OPI will send a report of students eligible for a license to Waterford (student name, school, grade level, and parent contact information).

Call for ELTI Program Highlight Videos

Memorandum – Let us highlight your Early Targeted Intervention programs.

Professional Development Opportunities

Check out these links for upcoming events and courses:
The Learning HUB
Early Math Counts!
Cox Campus

Waterford

Click here for more information on Waterford, Montana OPI’s partner in Home-based Early Learning. For more information, contact Beck Eberhardt, School Relations Director, at BeckyEberhardt@waterford.org  or (701)261-8888.

Visit the Early Literacy website, call or email us anytime.

Contact Information

Jackie Ronning, Early Learning Specialist
(406) 438-0522 
jackie.ronning@mt.gov 

Kimberly Evans, Early Learning Research Analyst
(406) 594-7053 
kimberly.evans@mt.gov

Professional Development News

Professional Development Requests

Fill out the PD Request Form to request specialized professional development from the Standards, Instruction, and Professional Learning Team at OPI (expected time: 10-12 minutes). This request form serves as an opportunity for school districts to communicate their needs for additional professional development opportunities in the area of K-12 Education. 

Once a request is submitted, OPI's Standards, Instruction, and Professional Learning Team will review the request and consider the next steps. Follow-up communication will be had directly with the party submitting this form unless otherwise indicated. If this request is being made less than thirty days from the requested professional development day, please understand that there is a small chance our specialists will be available.

Become an Approved OPI PDU Provider

Superintendents and principals—if your district or school isn’t yet an approved provider of Professional Development Units, we encourage you to apply!

As an approved provider, you can:

• Issue official OPI PDU certificates for the professional learning you host.
• Support your educators by ensuring their PD is recognized and aligned with district goals and ISAPs.
• Highlight your district’s commitment to high-quality professional learning.

👉 Apply today to give your educators the credit they deserve:

• Apply to Become an Approved Provider
• Read the Provider Requirements

Don’t wait—apply before the new school year gets underway!

Substitute Teacher Resource

Step Into the Classroom with Confidence - Ensure that your substitute teachers are prepared, professional, and ready to support learning from the very first day. The Substitute Teacher Academy offers affordable, online, self-paced training covering classroom management, student engagement, professionalism, and special education basics. All courses include videos, classroom scenarios, discussion boards, and interactive activities to build practical skills that transfer directly into the classroom.

substituteteacheracademy.com
substituteteacheracademy@gmail.com
Dr. Lori Schieffer 406-249-7274

OPI Learning Opportunities Portal

The OPI Learning Opportunities Portal was designed to create a one-stop hub for professional development opportunities available to educators across Montana. This platform brings together workshops, training sessions, and events from the OPI as well as a variety of other professional learning providers from around the state.

Since its launch, the portal has become an invaluable resource for connecting educators with the development opportunities they need. We invite administrators, school staff, and external providers to share their upcoming events on the portal, helping to consolidate all available resources in one easy-to-access location. We also encourage you to share this information with your educators, ensuring they have the opportunity to explore and take advantage of the many professional learning events available to them.

Explore the portal here: OPI Learning Opportunities Portal

Content Area Updates

Standards and Resources on Satchel

Keep up to date on standards and guidance documents on Satchel, which allows you to easily search and navigate newly implemented, adopted, and existing content standards, including Montana's new 2025 English Language Proficiency Standards, the 2026 Mathematics Content Standards, and the 2026 World Languages Content Standards and Performance Descriptors.

The Last Best Learning Podcast

The mission of the Last Best Learning Podcast is to deliver digestible and relevant professional learning that honors educators’ capacity in an increasingly busy world.

Our state’s educators empower minds, elevate futures, and inspire self-discovery--and we walk beside them.

We invite you to join us in this innovative approach to professional development, tailored to address the unique challenges faced by educators in Montana's ever-changing educational landscape. At the end of each month, the podcast will be uploaded to the K-12 Content Standards webpage as well as the Podcast YouTube channel. 

Check out our latest episodes

• Ep. 14 - Looking Forward: 5th graders report out on what they need from school, with teacher leader Tracy Babcock and her 5th grade class
• Ep. 13 - Getting Ready: New School Year, New Standards Coming, with the Last Best Learning hosts

Coming Soon

• October - Ep. 15 - MAST in Motion: Lessons from Implementation in Montana, with Rachel Barkell from Anaconda Public School District
• November - Ep. 16 - IEFA - You Don’t Have to Be an Expert—But You Do Have to Begin with special guest Connie Michael from Crow Agency Elementary School
• December - Ep. 17 - Combatting Conflict, with special returning guest John Sommers-Flanagan of the Happiness Project

Math

The Office of Public Instruction is offering two math webinar series!

Register for the Montana Math Monthly Implementation webinar now! 

You may register at any point in the series, so if you missed August and September, don’t worry! Recordings are available. 

Session #1: August 21st - Why the Change? Understanding the Math Standards

Session #2: September 18th - Exploring the Changes and Structure: Navigating the Standards Document (Recording coming soon!) 

1 PDU is available for each live session engagement.

Register for the Big Sky Standards: Real World Data October Session Now!
Register for the November Session Now!
December: Asynchronous Session 

You may register at any point in the series, so if you missed August or September, don’t worry! Recordings are available. 

• Session #1 Recording: Why Data Science - August 19th, 2025  & Session #1 Slide Deck
• Session #2 Recording: Take the Intimidation out of Data Through Mathematics - September 9th & Session #2 Slide Deck

1 PDU is available for each live session engagement.

Math Standards Resources

New Resources have been added to the math standards revision website including: 

• PK-12 Guidance Document
• One-pagers to support district communications with stakeholder groups
• Tools to support alignment work 
• Recommended pathways, course alignment, financial literacy guidance, and more!

MT Math Minute

September's volume of the MT Math Minute is live and ready to view! Each month, our Math Coordinator compiles relevant features, classroom resources, IEFA implementation ideas, and sometimes, teacher spotlights! This month's edition features resources for integrating mathematics learning concepts with the context of Moccasins PK-12, new math standards resources, professional learning opportunities, and helpful classroom resources. Future editions will include district and school spotlights when available. Districts, schools, or teachers interested in being featured in future Math Minute editions can fill out this form. 

Want to receive these in your mailbox each month? Subscribe now!

STEM

Get involved with the Montana STEM Ecosystem: Reach out to Heather Jameson (heather@mtafterschoolalliance.org), Strategic Initiatives Lead

Keep updated on: Science Professional Development  Grant or Paid Teacher Opportunities  Challenges and Competitions  Student and Classroom Opportunities  Montana STEM Community Find many other resources and opportunities on the Montana OPI Science Page.

Competitions

The Toshiba/NSTA ExploraVision competition is back for another year of imagination, innovation, and technological vision! ExploraVision challenges students to form teams and research a current technology, then envision what it could look like ten years in the future and how it might affect the world. It's project-based, NGSS-aligned, and open to students from kindergarten through 12th grade in the United States and Canada.

Open the Door to a Future in STEM

With ExploraVision, your students develop tools critical to a future in STEM—innovation, teamwork, even presentation skills! See what longtime ExploraVision supporter, Bill Nye the Science Guy, had to say here.

eCYBERMISSION is a national program, the competition shares free resources with educators.

Here's a brief look at why teachers and students enjoy eCYBERMISSION:

• Teachers have access to:
• assistance from the eCYBERMISSION team
• standards-aligned lesson plans ready for the classroom
• the chance to apply for grants
• Students can:
• have questions answered by eCYBERMISSION staff and STEM professionals
• participate in live, online chats with professionals in STEM careers
• compete to win thousands of dollars in awards

ELA

Upcoming Hub Course: Preparing Students for the MAST Performance Task

Be on the lookout for a new course on the Learning Hub: Preparing Students for the MAST Performance Task. This course is designed for 3-8 teachers and will guide participants through a review of the rubrics and ELA content standards relevant to the writing assessment, writing strategies to use all year long with your students, and instructional resources and approaches to practice the Performance Task–including exemplars, prompts, and more. 

Montana ELA Updates

Check out the Montana OPI ELA page to view updates on standards revisions and learning opportunities available this summer!

• ELA Announcements
• Professional Learning Opportunities
• Standards and Standards Revision Updates

Art

Register for MAEA Conference

Registration is now open for the fall teacher's conference. Click Here to register  Don't forget to register for our amazing Keynote speaker Nancy Silberkleit, CEO of Archie Comics. 

Nancy will give the audience an inside look into her career going from a public school art teacher for more than 20 years to her stepping into the boardroom of Archie Comics. She will tell about how what she learned as an Art Educator helped her in business and how she has had to use those skills to adapt. Nancy shows how teachers can use graphics to open the discussion for many important topics and give some examples of that. She will instill the importance of being an art teacher and the value they carry in the school and in young students' lives. Nancy will aim to inspire, educate and entertain during this lively talk and welcomes questions from the audience.    

History/Social Studies

Montana Historical Society History and Civics Travel Grants

The soft opening for the Montana Heritage Center is December 2, and school tours of our new exhibits will start January 2. 

The Montana Historical Society wants all students to benefit from the new museum, and to be able to tour our state capitol and has been raising money to support the cost of travel to and from Helena (stopping at points in between if you are very far away.)  

Through a generous grant from Montana Blue Cross Blue Shield, the Montana Historical Society will be offering financial support to offset travel costs to Helena for public, private, and homeschool collective schools from across the state. Funding is awarded to schools who will travel more than fifty miles (one way) to Helena and is based on a formula that includes:

• distance to Helena
• number of students
• type of transportation

While MTHS History and Civics Grant may not cover the entire cost of your Field trip, this funding is designed to make this experience accessible to ALL schools. Applications are due by October 13.

Apply here: MTHS School Tour Request and Grant Form  

Questions? Email Darby.Bramble2@mt.gov

Standard Revisions Updates

ELA Standards

Adoption of Montana’s new English Language Arts and Literacy Standards by the Board of Public Education is pending, based on a legislative review of the ELA standards Economic Impact Statement. The anticipated implementation date is July 2027. This new implementation date was selected to allow school districts more time between implementation of math and ELA standards. 

Check out the Montana ELA & Literacy Standards Revision Overview one-pager for an overview of the revisions.

More information can be found on the OPI’s ELA Standards Revisions Webpage.

Math Standards

The Board of Public Education has determined that more time should be allotted for district implementation of the new math standards. The new implementation date is July 2026! 

Professional learning is ongoing! Keep an eye out for opportunities at conferences and on the mathematics standards webpage to learn more about the new standards. 

Don’t forget to register for our two implementation webinar series, starting in August. See the math section below for more information. 

Guidance is being developed as we speak. To stay informed, visit the mathematics revision webpage. All published guidance documents will be visible on this page as they become available.