Gallatin Gateway School

Visiting Gallatin Gateway School in Montana

After two great days at Yellowstone National Park we headed north into Montana.  I visited a really interesting "small" school called Gallatin Gateway School.  It has about 150 students from kindergarten to Grade 8.  Here are some interesting things I found in this school:

• There is a separate class for each year level, so there are 9 different  classes.
• The smallest class has 8 students and the largest has 22.
• If a class has more than 20 students then, by Montana State law, the class must have a teaching assistant (Teacher Aide) for a minimum of 90 minutes each day.
• There are specialist teachers for Sport, Art, Music, Library, Computing and Science.  Some of these are part-time positions and some teachers are specialist in several subjects.
• The school has two Learning Needs Teachers and a Counsellor.
• There are 14 teachers altogether, plus the Principal.
• There are separate classrooms for Art, Food Technology, Computers, Science, and a huge basketball stadium.
• All children have breakfast and lunch at school and these are provided in a special dining room.  There are two employed cooks in the kitchen.
• Every classroom is permanently locked so no one can get in from the outside.  This is the same in almost every school in the USA to keep all the people in the school safe from intruders.
• The Principal is also the Superintendent, as this is a school all by itself (that's why I chose it).  She has 12 different jobs including things like bus controller, curriculum leader, safety controller, food manager, etc., and has a different job description for each job.
• The Board does her appraisal for her - for all 12 job descriptions - and they all have to be done with the whole board present!
• The people were all very friendly and welcoming and I really enjoyed my time there.

Here are two photos of the outside of the school: