These are extraordinary times with extraordinary challenges and I know that some days seem harder than others.

On those hard days, I think of the many ways in which communities across Montana have come together to support their neighbors and their state and, most especially, their students and teachers. Schools are working so hard to ensure that students continue to receive instruction and services.  It is without doubt a monumental undertaking but amongst the struggles there are so many successes.

In ways small and big, our public schools are lifting up our public school students:

• Parades of teachers in their cars driving through school neighborhoods with signs of encouragement and waves and greetings of support
  
• Teachers, retired and current, volunteering to deliver food
  
• Teachers, retired and current, helping with food preparation
  
• Teachers finding creative ways to communicate with students and parents
  
• Teachers sharing group music videos and playful group videos to remind their students they are loved and missed
  
• Teachers spending their free-time to develop, and share, a method to use 3-D printers to make reusable masks
  
• Teachers creating live story-time videos to read to students (and parents!) 

The list goes on.  But you get the idea.

Distance learning is not most people’s preferred delivery method.  But our public school teachers have risen to the challenge.  Our students are frustrated and, I am sure, angry, but knowing they have the support of their teachers is fundamental to their success: today and tomorrow.

- Moffie Funk