Winter break at Morningside Elementary in Great Falls is a pause from what officials described as a fast-moving period for a program that pairs a college teaching degree with daily work inside an elementary school.
Great Falls Public Schools’ CORE School at Morningside is operating as a public charter that embeds students from the University of Montana–Western into an elementary setting for a three-year degree track. Under the model, college students take classes taught by the school’s K-6 teachers and also receive instruction from specialists such as the librarian and music teacher, while working as paid teaching assistants in the classrooms.
Program officials said the college students’ coursework is integrated into that assistant role and that tuition has been covered by grants, at least so far. The district said it wants the program to become a pipeline of young, credentialed teachers who arrive with years of experience working in a school. Recruitment is expected to begin in spring for the program’s third year, and officials said the waiting list of prospective college students has nearly 30 names.
The coordinator, Marni Napierala, described the effort as personally meaningful. She said, “It’s been an incredible journey,” and “It’s the pride of my career, for sure.” Napierala, a Great Falls-based liaison for UM–Western who previously worked in Great Falls Public Schools for nearly three decades, said she had long been interested in a model that could work more like an apprenticeship.
“How do you make a school?” Napierala said, describing the barrier that initially made the plan feel too daunting. She said the idea gained traction after Montana lawmakers approved new charter school legislation in 2023, which opened the door for districts to create charter models. She said Great Falls Public Schools submitted its public charter application to the Montana Board of Public Education in the fall of 2023, and that the model was built nearly from scratch after the legislative change.
The CORE School program is a partnership between Great Falls Public Schools and UM–Western in Dillon. The program is built around a three-year degree that keeps college students in the school throughout the schedule, longer than what the district described as a traditional residency model. Katrina Kennett, an education professor at UM–Western and the faculty lead of the degree program, described the program’s origin as “really amazing women saying, ‘Wait, can we do this,’” and said the model gives education students opportunities that are more connected to the daily grind of teaching than what she said is typical in other degree pathways.
Kennett said the immersion offers practical benefits, telling that, “You get the immediacy and the skills to be able to work with what the day-to-day looks like,” and that “you get that benefit of seeing the child development happening in front of you today.” Officials said that after the Montana Board of Public Education approved the charter proposal, the district planned fall 2024 as the first year under the CORE school model.
Principal Jennifer Martyn said the charter model required bringing in a newly hired teaching staff to operate under the CORE framework. She said most teachers came from within Great Falls Public Schools and that the teachers were required to hold a master’s degree to serve dual roles as elementary teachers and UM–Western adjunct professors, with adjunct hiring handled through the university’s process.
While the program’s college students are moving through the degree track, the school also created what administrators described as a lottery system for elementary students. Administrators said families within the typical Morningside district received priority placement and that about 200 of those students returned, while about 100 more came through families that opted into the lottery to attend. They said the lottery was weighted to make Morningside similar to other district schools in areas including the number of military students, students receiving free and reduced lunch, students with special needs, and other demographics. Martyn said some families found the transition and lottery changes disruptive.
The school year for the charter’s first cohort began after elementary students cut the ribbon on the new CORE school on Aug. 27, 2024, a day before the school year started. Officials said 11 college students began their degree programs as elementary school activity resumed. The college track is called a “sprint degree,” with many general education classes taken online through UM–Western and students working through summers across the three-year program. During the school year, officials said students primarily take education classes from GFPS adjunct teachers and work as paid, part-time teaching assistants at the school.
Grant funding has covered tuition for the sprint-degree students in their first and second years, officials said. Kennett said a sprint-degree grant from the Montana Office of Commissioner of Higher Education supported the first cohort that began in 2024, and that the new group of 11 students started this fall with support from OCHE’s “Grow Your Own Educator Program.” For the first class of students, the program’s third and final year is scheduled for fall 2026, when Kennett said tuition would then be supported by the Montana Teacher Residency Program through the state Office of Public Instruction.
“It provides them just enough to be able to go to work and do this,” Kennett said, adding that she views the support as “so powerful when we think about access and these particular students.” She and other stakeholders said they are also looking for longer-term grants to support future sprint-degree students in their first and second years.
When students reach their third year, officials said they graduate from teaching assistants and become student teachers working in a classroom full time for the entire year. Next fall, they said, Morningside will for the first time have first-year program students in the same building as third-year students. Officials said that coordinating schedules for both college and elementary students can be daunting, but they also pointed to cohesion among faculty, staff, and students’ families.
Kennett said, “I walk into a lot of schools. There are committed people in all schools I go into,” and described the coordination of commitment as special. Students in the program also described the opportunity. Daniela Pinneo, who has worked at Great Falls Public Schools for more than a decade, told Montana Free Press, “I like the opportunity.” Brooklyn Wood, 20, said, “And I was like, it’s worth trying,” and that “And I’ve never felt more at place with what I’m doing.”
The story was originally published by Montana Free Press and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.