Kristi Borge, a teacher in a rural one-room schoolhouse in Polaris, Montana, has been named her state’s 2021 Teacher of the Year. Photo credit: Kristi Borge
I always enjoy sharing stories about teachers who have been honored for their excellence in the classroom. One of these is Krista Borge, a K-8 teacher from Polaris, Montana, whose classroom is in a rural one-room schoolhouse. She has been named the 2021 Montana State Teacher of the Year.
Over the course of her career, Kristi has taught students from kindergarten through eighth grade in every content area. In her school, Kristi is the only full-time staff member. She teaches several grade levels at once, including students who are siblings.
In her schoolhouse, Kristi wears many hats. She is the administrator, librarian, and the school lawn care and snow removal technician. In addition, she helps co-ordinate extracurricular activities such as the rural school science fair, the basketball league, and the track meet. “You have to be really self-sufficient when you run a one-room school,” Kristi observes.
Kristi earned her Bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education with a minor in K-12 Reading from Montana State University, Bozeman. Later she earned a Master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction from the same university.
Kristi inaugurated her degree as a middle school Social Studies and Language Arts teacher at Monforton School in Four Corners. After four years there, Kristi and her husband, Erik, returned to the small town of her roots.
In addition to teaching, Kristi enjoys traveling. She even volunteers to escort students for the program People to People Student Ambassadors, which gives her opportunities to tour Europe and Australia with high school students. She has traveled to Cambodia as a volunteer English teacher, and she has worked as a science camp instructor at the Montana Learning Center during her summers.
In her classroom, Krista is passionate about exploring and employing best practices and careful curriculum planning to meet the needs of her diverse learners. But these are not the only priorities of the honored teacher. “My number one goal is to build positive relationships with the students first,” she declares. “Then, once you have mutual respect and understanding, then you can make a lot of progress in academics.”
To learn more about this Chalkboard Champion, see the article published about her at the website for Montana State University.
