Montana Parent Information and Resource Center (PIRC)

Address: 2525 Palmer Street, Suite 1, c/o WORD, Inc.
Missoula, MT 59808 Phone: (406) 543-3550 Fax: (406) 7214584 Email: montanapirc@wordinc.org

The Montana PIRC is administered under the auspices of WORD, Inc. WORD’s long history of offering parent involvement programs began when we created the state’s first Family Resource Centers in 1993. These were expanded during our administration of the Montana Parent Information and Resource Centers Program (1998-2002) and will continue to grow as WORD once again received the PIRC grant (2007-2012). We also draw on our experiences with other programs in WORD such as Futures, BASICS and Family Resource Centers, which work with teen parents, homeless and American Indian families, as well as the parents of Title 1 students throughout Western Montana. With these programs, we have built up a significant body of knowledge on how to support parents (particularly those experiencing social and economic disadvantage) and schools to meet the educational needs of our children. We share our expertise with education professionals and agencies across Montana, in order to make a real difference in the academic achievement of students and the educational effectiveness of schools. All components of MT PIRC have emerged from and are in strong accord with current, peer-reviewed, empirical research in the fields of economics, education, cognitive psychology and neuroscience.