The House Appropriations Committee will now hammer out the details of a bill that would set aside one million dollars a year for a new teacher mentoring program to decide if the investment is worth it.

Rep. Melissa Romano, D-Helena, is the sponsor of House Bill 455. She says teaching can have an especially difficult learning curve and in other careers, new hires have more opportunities to ask questions since their coworkers are right next to them, which just isn’t possible in a classroom setting. But, she says, a statewide teacher mentoring program could help.

“Well-designed mentor pro...