Glacier County Schools

The office of the county superintendent of schools is provided by and for the people living in the county.  The superintendent is expected to provide the best possible educational setting for all schools in the county.  The office is a service agency that responds to local needs and provides professional and educational leadership.  Responsibilities of the superintendent include general supervision of the public schools, preserving all official school records, reviews school boundaries, advising schol trustees and district school officials, acting as the hearing officer in school controversies resulting from decisions of district trustees, chairing the pupil transportation committee, calculating levies for all school budgets within the county, registering educator and bus driver licenses, and receiving/processing home school applications.  The county superintendent carries out other duties as prescribed by the legislature, board of public education and state superintendent of public instruction.

The first School Act that established a common school system took place in 1865 while Montana was still a Territory.  An editorial in the Virginia City Post had these words to say about this new school law:

“…in every inhabited spot, let schools be erected.  Humble and deficient in many respects they must be, at first; but in a marvelously short time, if the endeavors of the mothers and fathers of Montana are persistent and well directed, a school system shall rise in our midst worthy of our name and station, and the riches which our children will inherit will fall into hands fitted to receive them, and to apply them intelligently for their own good and the welfare of the land of their birth…” (Anderson, 1872).

Provisions were made by law for the election of a county superintendent of schools in each county.  The county superintendent assisted the State Educator Officer by setting up school districts in each of the counties that existed at that time.  Other duties included:

• Examine all persons wanting to teach
• Issue revocable certificate, good for one year
• Visit each school in his county taught by a qualified teacher
• Apportion the school fund of the county among the school districts
• Receive reports from teachers and boards
• Make a report before December 1st on enrollments, school houses, operating districts, books used and salaries paid teachers
• Prevent trespassing on state school lands.

Distributed by:  The Montana Association of County School Superintendents