It’s in that remote area that Greg Hirst, the superintendent-slash-French teacher, is attempting to educate just under 200 total students from kindergarten through 12th grade, all of whom live on the Blackfeet reservation, at the Heart Butte School.

“My vision is simple: I just want a much better school,” Hirst said.

Creating that much better school—the key to breaking a cycle of poverty for Heart Butte’s children that has persisted for generations—will be no easy task. Money is tight, good teachers are hard to recruit, and the town’s isolation means many of the social-safety-net resources available elsewhere are missing here. Heart Butte is poised for potential turnaround—the school has routinely been identified as in need of improvement under federal performance guidelines—with a new program run by the state and funded by Washington, D.C.

The school, so small it’s fielding a six-man football team this year, has never got more than 52 percent of its students at or above the proficient level on state reading tests between 2007 and 2013, despite more than 80 percent of kids statewide hitting that benchmark those same years. Math and science results were worse.

“I think our community would be hard-pressed to give the reasons. They know our students as being alive and wanting to learn, and yet it doesn’t add up,” Hirst told a group of reporters and visitors from the state education office and Council of Chief School Officers touring the school in October.

With any program financed by Congress, the questions are whether the resources will be enough and how long will they last. Hirst believes in his bones that the kids of Heart Butte can do better and is hopeful this new program will provide the funding and expertise the school so sorely needs.

Students here haven’t had a strong structure in their early schooling, Hirst said, perhaps because the district didn’t have the proper programs and supports in place, or because of the school’s high staff turnover. Some 50 percent of the staff leave each year, voluntarily or involuntarily. The school board takes a “tough stance” in search of quality staff despite the difficulties in attracting teachers to such a remote location, Hirst said.

The students at Heart Butte School tend to come from homes without a lot of money. Jobs on the reservation are scarce, and many of their parents don’t work. Native Americans tend to have higher rates of illicit drug use, domestic and sexual violence, and suicide than other races.

The school doesn’t really have a tax base—only about $15,000 of its $1.8 million annual budget comes from property taxes. Montana has a special state funding stream that aims to mitigate the impacts of that but revenue is still scarce. Heart Butte spends about $1,200 less per pupil every year than the roughly $10,400 per-pupil state average. Officials rely in large part on a dizzying array of federal funds, including Impact Aid, with a sometimes-overwhelming amount of paperwork.