Montana. Office of Public Instruction

In 1864, two years before the first school district was organized in Virginia City, Montana Territory, the position of "school commissioner" was created with the responsibility of reporting to the governor on matters relating to education in the territory. The office remained until the 1872 Montana Territorial Assembly passed a school law which provided that the guidance of the territory's schools be placed under a superintendent of public instruction. Governor Potts appointed Cornelius Hedges as the first territorial superintendent. The Montana Constitution of 1889 gave the superintendent the power "to adopt a course of studies and rules and regulations for all public schools, and obligated the superintendent to report on "the condition of public schools." The Constitution made the position of superintendent elective.

At the same time the Constitution also placed the newly created state's higher education system under the direction of the State Board of Education, composed of the superintendent of public instruction, the governor, the attorney general, and eight other members appointed by the governor. The State Board of Education was made responsible for the determination of educational programs and policy, preparation of budgets, financing of current operations, personnel administration, and planning and financing of physical facilities.

The 1889 constitution also specified that public school funds should consist of proceeds generated from school land, lieu lands, or those otherwise acquired for additional purposes, and that, "such public school fund shall forever remain inviolate, guaranteed by the State against loss or diversion, to be invested so far as practical in public securities within the State." The general authority for the direction and control over the care, sale, disposition of all state lands was placed under the State Board of Land Commissioners. The Board consisted of the governor, the superintendent of public instruction, the secretary of state, and the attorney general.

A Department of Public Instruction, under the superintendent's direction, was created by the Montana Legislative Assembly in 1959, "for the purpose of the staff and administration of the duties and services of the superintendent of public instruction." This legislation made legal the name which had been used informally by the superintendent's office for many years.

From 1929 to 1976 five women served as superintendents of public instruction: Elizabeth Ireland (1929-1937, 1941-1949); Ruth Reardon (1937-1941); Mary M. Condon (1949-1957); Harriet Miller (1957-1969); and Dolores Colburg (1969-1976).

From the guide to the Montana Office of Public Instruction Records, 1930-1978, (Montana Historical Society Research Center)