projects, which include the Montana Behavioral Health Workforce Network, the Montana The process is not that difficult, but it was clearly evident as well that there were a lot of areas in the agency that leadership did not understand or did not have a complete handle on what we did and who we did it for.. Montana's independent nonprofit news source. State of Montana Employee Directory Search Partial name searches are allowed. within the state. with her family. In the past five years, Montanas Office of Public Instruction has experienced a turnover rate of nearly 90%, generating questions about the adequacy of agency staffing, loss of institutional knowledge, and downstream impacts on school districts statewide. Miller reminded the board that he had requested its assistance in September to promote public messaging about the academic, social and economic importance of Montana public schools. 15 years experience and working knowledge of rural health issues and has worked closely Theres very few that remain that are sort of the people that Ive relied upon in years past. But their numbers continue to dwindle and the burdens continue to grow, he said. She also works on the Montana Rural Health Initiative. Muir left OPI on Sept. 1, 2020, and was one of the six signatories to an October 2020 op-ed criticizing Arntzen and calling for Romanos election. She previously worked at Shodair Childrens Hospital for 5 years. He completed We certainly dont pay our OPI staffers enough. Nearly every member of the board, at one point or another, expressed appreciation for staff who continue to work at the agency. NOSORH Emerging Leader Award in 2011. After obtaining his bachelor's degree in journalism and history, Sakariassen spent nearly 10 years covering environmental issues and state and federal politics for the alternative newsweekly Missoula Independent. His spouse, Christy, previously worked at OPI and is now an instructional coach at Helena Middle School where one of their children attends. projects, which include the Montana Behavioral Health Workforce Network, the Montana English testing participation in those grades was 92%, with 46% testing proficient. 2 0 obj and holds a Master of Public Health Health Systems, Management, and Policy from Our students are our most precious resource and the future of this great state. facilities to meet meaningful use requirements. Jake Kaminetzky grew up in Shoreline, WA and attended Montana State University, graduating She is committed to learning, growth, and willingness to thrive within her career. The Board of Public Education has requested another staffing report from OPI to be presented at its meeting later this month. Authorized Representatives; Central Office Staff by County; Central Office Staff by System; County Staff; . Executive Assistant/Deputy Communications Director. Cindra works extensively on Healthcare Workforce issues, serving as facilitator for Prior to this Jack was the Assistant Title I Director and Unit Manager for the School Support Unit at OPI working with at-risk districts. Her MBA was completed at Northern Arizona University, where she also completed post-masters work in Educational Leadership. Sara enjoys running, skiing, hiking, reading, and cooking According to Allen's report, 24.49 full-time-equivalent (FTE) positions will be vacant at OPI as of Nov. 21. Project Coordinatorgracebehrens@montana.edu406-994-6043Room 305 Culbertson Hall. in 2013 and became a Master in Public Administration nine years later. Montana Office of Rural Health and Area Health Education Center Montana State University P.O. Public education makes up roughly a third of Montanas state budget, and in response to the COVID-19 pandemic Congress has granted hundreds of millions of relief dollars to Montana schools. Sara grew up in rural Montana and graduated from Montana State University with a Bachelor is to manage the numerous grants and contracts that flow through the office and serve in Education from the University of Nebraska Montana Migrant Education Program. Over the past 10 months, there has been a growing clamor among school leaders and business officials, which today is at a fever pitch, Parman said. All Montana phone numbers are preceded by area code 406. Beth Ann is the Assistant Director of Behavioral Health Programs. She is a sixth generation Bobcat Please reload the page and try again. k " During his public comment before the board Wednesday, Parman put the vacancy issue into context, explaining that members of Montanas public education system have experienced increasing difficulty getting timely responses from the agency. Shortly after Arntzen took over the office in 2017, Granberry said, she began to feel relegated to more bureaucratic duties, reviewing and approving various forms and contracts while matters of policy fell to new staff brought on by Arntzen. Central Office Staff by System; County Staff; Legal Entities; Legal Entities - Expanded; Legal Entities by Fiscal Year; Nonpublic Accredited Schools; School Directory History; School Supervisory Staff by County; School Supervisory Staff by District; School Supervisory Staff by System; Schools; Systems; Systems - Expanded; Title I Schools; Return to OPI Portal Welcome to the Directory of Montana Schools. Arntzen pledges to fight for waivers for schools that have met benchmarks, to remove burden from the Federal level. Kirk Miller, executive director of the School Administrators of Montana, said he's noticed "significant turnover" in staffing at OPI's licensing division, which is charged with ensuring that. Lacey said the agenda item was not due to any specific concerns on the part of the board, but she noted that she has heard from people in educational circles that theyve been unsure who at OPI to contact with questions, since the employees theyre accustomed to talking to are no longer there. He also spent 16 years as a teacher and principal at several Montana schools. and workforce needs related to serving rural populations. health employees in Montana. The superintendents of Montana's AA schools, including Great Falls Public Schools, on Monday sent a letter of concern to Superintendent of Public Instruction Elsie Arntzen, expressing. She added that while individuals may have left the agency, she believes their knowledge has been passed on to remaining staff in their former divisions, which she noted she has renamed units.. While were working on recruitment and face many challenges with that, we need to focus equally on retention so were not losing these people, Hedalen said. kVdF#fX1W\9:F?*Jf2]cMmhR@k0|X3X$u*y},7GM n Emmy5Ye!:mZ_ul;G/5xd. An Oct. 26 copy of the report, provided by OPI this week in response to a records request, indicates that 57 staff members have left OPI due to personal reasons. Another 45 employees left to pursue other career options, and 38 employees retired. 2023 Montana's independent nonprofit news source. Asked about Parmans statements, Arntzen said she couldnt offer a response since hed delivered them before she arrived at the meeting. Upon completing her undergraduate No shouting. Brian grew up in Butte and Helena and received his B.A. process improvement specialist on Behavioral Health Workforce initiatives and the Community Health Services Development (CHSD) project. We are constantly enriching our leadership at this time because its management and leadership that I believe are part of that recruitment and, more importantly, that retention, Arntzen said. Telephone: (406) 994-6501 Email: [email protected] Undergraduate Programs. Driven by the motto: If opportunity doesnt knock, build a door. MISSOULA Montanas Board of Public Education was briefed about staff vacancies and recruitment challenges by Office of Public Instruction Deputy Superintendent Sharyl Allen Thursday. HELENA As required by the Biden Administrations U.S. Department of Education (USED), the Montana Office of Public Instruction (OPI) yesterday submitted its State Plan outlining how it will assist Montana schools in distributing and utilizing more than $382 million in COVID-19 relief funding from the American Recuse Plan (ARP) Act. The OPI also released a new Frequently Asked Questions document for schools as they navigate the process of deploying the new funding. Asked by Board Chair Tammy Lacey about the status of the roughly nine other vacancies listed in the report, Allen said some of those positions have been shifted or modified within the agency, requiring updates to their job descriptions prior to announcing them as open. Sydney is a Bozeman, Montana native and MSU alumna. SUPERINTENDENT'S OFFICE. The names that I knew and would have measured in terms of decades of experience are all gone, Melton said. implementation of hospital and clinic-based technical assistance programs and population When she isnt at the She looks forward to continuing to serve Montanas children and families at OPI. The CFPA led by MORH/AHEC works to build academic, clinical, and community in Mathematics and Statistics. 01. His background includes 10+ years in education law, including as legal counsel for the Montana Board of Public Education, at the U.S. Department of Education headquarters, and with the Montana School Boards Association. News apps are nice, but how many stories might you be missing? Over the past 10 months, there has been a growing clamor among school leaders and business officials, which today is at a fever pitch. Box 202501 Helena, Montana 59620-2501 In-State Toll-Free 1.888.231.9393, Local (406) 444.3095. new! Thats particularly true in the case of a field as complex as public education, she continued, where district staff may need extra help from OPI in completing annual reports. Taking care of the financial activity of Please reload the page and try again. Two of those employees cited Arntzens management style as a primary reason for accelerating their retirement plans. STATE OF MONTANA DIRECTORY Directory.MT.GOV State Directory Agencies Agencies AGENCY TELEPHONE LISTINGS Find key state employees in these agency listings by clicking on the agency name that the employee works for. She provides overall grant management for the Montana Office of Rural Health and oversees OPI has extended employment offers to candidates for five of those positions, Allen said, and four have accepted. TTY number is 406-444-1421. in Political Science and Communication Studies from Carroll in 2016. The report also noted a high vacancy rate at OPI, which it said makes compliance with federal regulations difficult. Jenna currently serves on her local school board. Workforce Coordinatorsydney.pearce@montana.edu406-994-6003Room 311 Culbertson Hall. endstream About a third of the office is currently working from home, she added. Earlier this spring, Superintendent Arntzen submitted comments on USEDs Interim Final Requirements, which lay out the agencys implementation strategy for the relevant sections of the ARP Act that appropriated funding to our nations schools. Arntzens comments were the only from any state educational agency nationwide that proposed solutions to fix the challenges embedded in the Interim Final Requirements. If those issues remain uncorrected in the final rule, Arntzen will pursue a variety of waivers to help minimize the burden on our local educational agencies (LEA). These LEAs are required to produce two Federally mandated plans related to how they will spend their allocated dollars, and how they plan to bring students back to the classroom safely. However, the Federal rule does not mandate that an LEA adopt the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] guidance, but only requires that the LEA describe in its plan the extent to which it has adopted the key prevention and mitigation strategies identified in the guidance. Many schools in Montana were open throughout all or much of the 2020-2021 school year, and have already returned students to school safely, Arntzen noted. They should be afforded the opportunity to focus on other matters, and have a waiver instated for the requirement to update the plan every six months, with stakeholder input, until September 30, 2023. Montanas State Plan received support from U.S. With 38-years in public education, she has previously served as the Transformational Learning and Montana Advanced Opportunities program managerand since April 2020 as the Deputy Superintendent. In response, he added, his association and others have taken it upon themselves to offer expertise and legal advice to local school officials and educators. Since January 2017, the state Office of Public Instruction has experienced a remarkable amount of staff turnover at all levels of the agency. Schools can access regularly updated ESSER resources, including guidance and information on weekly Q&A sessions, on the OPIs website at: http://opi.mt.gov/COVID-19-Information/ESSER. in 1993. Her previous healthcare experience ranges from clinical settings to Montana Rural Education Association Executive Director Dennis Parman challenged the OPIs assessment of vacancies during public comment Wednesday while speaking on behalf of the Montana Public Education Center, which represents six state education associations including the Montana Federation of Public Employees and the School Administrators of Montana. Some of them have left and are still afraid to talk about it because theyre afraid that the retaliation may follow them to any new job that they might want to get.. Contact your agency IT staff to make changes to the following telephone listings. 03. Your membership makes this and all our other local reporting possible. With the change of administration in January 2017, Muir said, she quickly grew to feel that her work was under a microscope, adding that even employee workstations were critiqued by new leadership. Second String Orchestra. The upgrade is being funded with $13.4 million in federal COVID-19 relief dollars. Now more than ever, Montana needs quality local, independent journalism. face with access to quality healthcare. News apps are nice, but how many stories might you be missing? underserved Colorado. All Montana phone numbers are preceded by area code 406. Beth Ann currently oversees all of the behavioral health-focused Thank you for supporting Montana Free Press and being a part of our community. Every dollar helps your family, friends and neighbors access reliable, relevant local reporting. of projects related to healthcare workforce training in rural and underserved communities She moved to Bozeman to attend cabin in rural Montana. She enjoys travelling the Granberry started at OPI in September 1989, serving as a division director for more than 20 years before assuming the assistant superintendent of education services post in August 2016. She has worked at the intersection of rural and health equity for Whoops! Health Education from Montana State University and her Masters of Public Health from Natalee is passionate about MBA and MS in Audiology from the University of New Mexico. At the MORH/AHEC, she works as the Program Coordinator Sharyl is a native Montanan raised in an entrepreneurial environment with ranching as the backbone of her family. Read the 2017-2021 OPI Termination Report, a staggering loss of veteran employees under Arntzens leadership, teachers in Montana classrooms meet the professional qualifications, How an Obamacare remnant survives and prospers in Montana, The Session: Taxes, missing persons and child welfare, hundreds of millions of relief dollars to Montana schools, primary conduit for delivering those funds, criticizing Arntzen and calling for Romanos election, NorthWestern Energy to increase ownership share in Colstrip, First abortion bill of 2023 introduced in Montana Legislature, Bill would require rental application fee refunds, Proudly powered by Newspack by Automattic. We cant compete financially, Allen said. MPEC has done its part, he said, and polling conducted by the organization this year revealed strong support for public education among Montana voters, with more than 50% of respondents saying they trust classroom teachers and local school boards most regarding whats best for students academically. The former position has most recently been involved with the effort to upgrade OPIs data systems, which are used for a variety of purposes including processing teacher licenses. A native of rural Nebraska; her hobbies Never miss Montanas biggest stories and breaking news. In that role, Granberry oversaw a handful of agency divisions, including those responsible for managing special education and federal assistance for low-income students. was a National Rural Health Association (NRHA) Rural Health Fellow, and received the As of Nov. 5, the accreditation division was down to one staff member, with three other positions, including accreditation administrator, vacant. The self-paced course takes roughly 1.5 - 2 hours to complete and is worth 1 OPI renewal unit. The concerns brought to the board this week werent confined to staffing levels. Those numbers were consistent [at] about 30 [departures] every year, Arntzen said. state of Montana with her husband. It is time to put our Montana students first and focus on a local control system that Bridging the Communication Between Schools and Families, HiSET (Formerly GED)/HiSET Options Program, Educator License Options & Requirements Information, Earn Professional Development Units Online, Educator Licensing & Preparation Task Forces, Acceleration and Evidence-Based Instruction, Montana Alternative Student Testing Pilot Program, School Innovation, Flexibility & Efficiency, IT Resources for Schools - Programs & Grants, Achieving Educational Excellence Through Local Control, School Administrators of Montana Vacancy Postings. 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