Billings Public Schools

In the year since the Montana High School Association added baseball, less than two dozen teams have signed on — and, because of things like cost and field access, many of the state’s largest districts don’t have firm plans to “play ball” quite yet.

Calls reporting an active shooter situation were made to dispatchers in Billings, Colstrip, Forsyth, Manhattan, Miles City and Red Lodge as well as Cascade, Madison and Gallatin counties

With the school year starting up, schools in the Billings area are having difficulty finding people to hire for key positions.

The district, citing falling case counts and improved attendance, is removig the face covering requirement that’s been in place since it was reimplemented in August.

The Billings Public Schools Board of Trustees voted Monday night to keep “Lawn Boy” and “Gender Queer: A Memoir” in circulation at the high school level, saying both books meet the libraries’ selection criteria.

After announcing last month it was planning to make masks optional, Billings Public Schools now says it will keep its mask requirement in place when the new semester starts next week.

Of the Montana schools that have met the state's program deadline, most show high levels of lead in school drinking water.

In the early days of the school year some Montana districts are already closing classrooms due to COVID-19 cases.

The Yellowstone County health department is on-boarding school staff to track down the close contacts of people who test positive for COVID-19.

School districts across Montana have been in session for a few weeks now and there have already been confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus in schools...