Juneau Announces Student Loan Help for Missoula Area Teachers

Superintendent of Public Instruction Denise Juneau announced today that Montana is providing student loan repayment help to 163 teachers as an incentive to recruit teachers in needed fields to rural areas.

The teachers, selected from about 500 applicants, will get student loan repayment assistance of up to $3,000 a year for the next four years – for a total of up to $12,000.

"Montana has some of the best teachers in the nation," said Juneau. "It is important that we do what we can in this economy to keep good teachers here in rural schools, especially in areas like technical and special education which are difficult to fill.”

The 163 quality educators who received loan repayment represent 125 different schools and eight special education cooperatives including Alberton School, Arlee High School, Arlee Elementary School, Drummond Public Schools, Hawthorne Elementary, Lowell Elementary, Saint Regis Schools, Seeley Lake Elementary, Stevensville Jr High, Stevensville Elementary, Superior Jr/Sr High, and Victor High School.

Recipients covered all identified academic subject areas with identified teacher shortages including: career and technical education, music, special education, mathematics, speech/language pathologist, science, world languages, school counselor, library media, and art. The greatest number of loan repayment assistance was given to special education teachers with 55 awardees and career and technical education teachers with 38 awardees.