Montana lawmakers formally expressed their disappointment Wednesday with state Superintendent Elsie Arntzen’s unwillingness to appear before a legislative committee to resolve conflicts over the implementation of new education laws passed last session.
In a letter approved by the Education Interim Budget Committee, members called upon Arntzen to “turn your attention to faithfully fulfilling the duties of the office to which you were elected,” arguing that the people most harmed by ongoing friction between the Legislature and the Office of Public Instruction are “Montana’s school children.” The committee’s message came in response to allegations of institutional inefficiencies and delays at OPI — allegations that prompted the committee’s chair and primary author of the letter, Rep. David Bedey, R-Hamilton, to express his view that Arntzen had “failed to meet her constitutional obligation” as head of Montana’s K-12 public school system.
“I have high regard for the employees working at the OPI,” Bedey said during a committee hearing in Helena Wednesday. “Many of them are indispensable, and some of those indispensable folks have left the organization recently. But be that as it may, at the end of the day, leadership matters, and an organization depends upon its leadership.”
Arntzen fired back within minutes of the committee’s vote to send the letter, both in an emailed press release and in a statement read to committee members by her deputy and chief legal counsel Rob Stutz. In her statement, Arntzen vowed to stand firm on several positions she and Stutz have taken in relation to several pieces of legislation passed in 2023.
“This is a political persecution,” Arntzen wrote. “I am being attacked because I am a conservative. I stood up for limited bureaucracy, fought the radical transgender agenda, opposed woke-ism, promoted good government, and delivered results for our children, parents, and schools.”
The criticism of OPI’s performance under Arntzen’s leadership, leveled during a two-day span of interim legislative hearings in Helena, ranged from delays in the agency’s implementation of new education laws passed last year to insufficient communication with school districts and educators. One local school official, Bonner School District Superintendent Jim Howard, told lawmakers OPI did not adequately notify his staff last year of a change to the application deadline for a program incentivizing raises for starting teachers, costing the small district east of Missoula more than $18,000 in state funding.
“When we inquired about the value of appealing for an opportunity to late-file, we were told [by OPI] that another district had appealed up the food chain to the superintendent and had already been denied,” Howard said.
Howard’s testimony Tuesday echoed the flurry of criticism aired by lawmakers themselves. Citing feedback from local school officials and statewide education associations, members of two education-oriented legislative committees expressed grave concerns about OPI’s handling of new laws addressing early childhood literacy, public charter schools, out-of-district student enrollment and reporting requirements for instruction on Indigenous culture.
Looming over the debate was Arntzen’s absence from the proceedings as Stutz fielded questions and provided information on her behalf. Lawmakers repeatedly cast her absence as a barrier to promptly resolving disagreements between the Legislature and OPI over an unprecedented wave of change to Montana’s public education system.
“I don’t fault your sitting in place of her,” Rep. Linda Reksten, R-Polson, told Stutz. “But I do fault the fact that this is a shift in some of the educational legislation that requires a steady hand and careful leadership as we move forward into the next legislative session. So, with all due respect, we need that kind of attendance.”
OPI spokesperson Brian O’Leary told Montana Free Press via email Tuesday that Arntzen had “personal obligations that were not able to be rescheduled.” Asked whether those obligations were related to Arntzen’s official OPI duties or her Republican primary campaign for Montana’s eastern congressional district, O’Leary wrote that “private obligations are not OPI obligations, as those would be publicly available. This is the only information I have.”
Much of the tension this week boiled down to conflicting legal interpretations of several high-profile bills passed by the 2023 Legislature with strong bipartisan support. Lance Melton, executive director of the Montana School Boards Association, told lawmakers that divergence has led to improper or contrary messaging to districts by OPI about new legal requirements — a situation he added appeared “fairly coordinated and calculated.”
“This level of interference in the implementation of legislation is something I haven’t seen in my 30-plus years lobbying the Legislature,” Melton said.
One such example centered on House Bill 352, which provides state funding for local programs to strengthen reading and language comprehension for children through third grade. The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Brad Barker, R-Roberts, told lawmakers his intent was for summer programs to start at the end of the 2023-24 school year — a position upheld by other lawmakers and school officials. Reksten added that any delay in opening those programs will likely lead to lower participation rates as families look for alternative options at the beginning of the summer.
However, Stutz argued HB 352’s effective date prevents OPI from providing funding for any activity that occurs prior to July 1, 2024, and that doing otherwise would expose the agency to a potential audit. His stance drew strong criticism from School Administrators of Montana Executive Director Rob Watson, who accused the agency of stalling the law’s implementation, as well as from leaders of the Legislature’s education committees.
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