Michael Gard Ties Hardin's Youngest Grades to Its Graduation Goals

Wed, 23 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Michael Gard describes his agenda for Hardin as a single line rather than two programs. Strong reading and mathematics in the early grades and real career pathways in high school are, in his account, the same piece of work seen at two ends.

"Building strong foundational skills while also giving older students meaningful career and postsecondary opportunities creates a connected path from the earliest grades through graduation," Gard wrote in answers to written questions from The MTEdTribune.

Gard became superintendent of Hardin Elem^↗ and Hardin H S^↗, the paired elementary and high school districts that Montana reports separately and that he leads together as Hardin School Districts 17H and 1. Montana's state directory listed Tobin Novasio in the role before it listed Gard, and the state record picked up the change in August.

He came to the job after two decades in Arizona's Phoenix Union High School District, where he wrote that he worked as a classroom teacher, a campus administrator and a district administrator in human resources and operations. His family moved with him. His wife works as a high school counselor in the district, and his daughters attend Hardin schools.

"My family and I were excited about the opportunity to become part of a smaller community where relationships matter," he wrote.

The state enrollment record gives that connected-path idea a specific local shape, because the two ends of Hardin's system have not moved together at all.

Two districts, two trajectories

Hardin's elementary district enrolled 1,115 students in 2025-26, down from 1,429 in 2017-18. That is 314 fewer students, a decline of 22.0%. The high school district enrolled 481 students in 2025-26, down from 508 across the same nine published years. That is 27 fewer students, a decline of 5.3%.

Montana's published statewide enrollment fell 3.2% between those same endpoints. Hardin's high school district tracked closer to the state pattern. Its elementary district moved several times faster in the other direction.

Taken together, the two published district totals came to 1,596 students in 2025-26, against 1,937 nine years earlier, a combined decline of 341 students or 17.6%.

The state file establishes that this happened. It does not say why, and this article does not assert a cause. Families move for work, housing and family reasons that no enrollment count records. What the record does establish is that nearly all of the contraction sits on the elementary side of a system Gard now leads from both ends.

The entry point is the thin end

The current grade record makes the pattern more precise. Across both districts, Hardin enrolled 107 students in kindergarten in 2025-26 and 107 students in twelfth grade.

Those matching endpoints sit on either side of a wider middle. Kindergarten, grade 1 and grade 2 together enrolled 347 students. Grades 4, 5 and 6 enrolled 411. The three entering grades hold 64 fewer students than the three grades just above them, a gap of 15.6%.

This is a description of one year, not a forecast. The state record cannot say how many of today's second graders will still be in Hardin schools in 2036, and cohorts in a district this size move on small numbers. But it does locate where the system is currently narrowest, and it is the end Gard named first.

He listed his priorities as "improving literacy across grade levels, strengthening math readiness, expanding Career and Technical Education and internship opportunities, and supporting freshman success." Three of those four sit on either side of the middle grades. The connected path he described runs through exactly the stretch where Hardin's published counts are thinnest at one end and steadiest at the other.

Montana's statewide record shows a version of the same shape. RELATED: Montana reported more twelfth graders than first graders in 2026

What the schools look like now

Hardin's 1,596 students are spread across six schools that Montana reports with published totals, and those six reconcile exactly to the district totals.

Hardin High School is the largest at 411 students. Crow Agency School enrolled 232. The Big Horn Academy, the district's smaller high school setting, enrolled 70.

The community those schools serve is predominantly Native American. Montana published 1,234 Native American students across the two districts in 2025-26, at least 77.3% of the combined published total. That share is a floor rather than an exact figure: the state suppressed some racial and ethnic categories in both districts, so the published categories fall six students short of each district's published total, and the missing students are not counted anywhere in the categories that survived.

Gard named that community directly among his priorities, describing work on "strengthening partnerships with families, Tribal Nations, and the broader community." He said the district's mission is "empowering students to learn with purpose, honor culture, and grow with integrity."

Asked what he most wanted families to know, he pointed at the people already in the buildings rather than at a plan.

"One of the things I have appreciated most since arriving in Hardin is the pride people have in their schools and their community," he wrote.

The test ahead

Gard arrived after every year in this enrollment record was already written. Nothing in it is his, and nothing in it forecasts what happens next.

What it does supply is the shape of the system his agenda has to fit: a high school that has held close to its size, an elementary district that has not, and entering grades that are currently smaller than the grades ahead of them. His stated plan runs from early literacy to career pathways as one path. The record shows that the path is narrowest where it starts.

Enrollment, school and grade figures come from the Montana Office of Public Instruction published enrollment record. Montana publishes Hardin as two district records, an elementary district and a high school district; combined figures in this article are the sum of those two published totals. Dr. Gard answered written questions from The MTEdTribune in August 2026, and all quotations come from that written response.

Detailed code that reproduces the analysis and figures in this article is available exclusively to EdTribune subscribers.

Hardin H S - EdTribune MT - Montana Education Data

Michael Gard Ties Hardin's Youngest Grades to Its Graduation Goals

Two districts, two trajectories

The entry point is the thin end

What the schools look like now

The test ahead