Two days before classes started this fall at Bigfork Elementary School, Jessie Smiley began decorating her kindergarten classroom.

Other teachers' classrooms had been set up for days, if not weeks. Other teachers had lesson plans prepared and were ready for the new school year to start Sept. 8.

Smiley found out the morning of Sept. 4 that she'd been hired.

"For me it was a relief," said Smiley, who had planned to work as a substitute teacher during the 2009-10 school year. "I really wanted to teach. I wanted to be in a classroom and get a relationship going with the kids."

A last-minute surge in kindergarten enrollment prompted the Bigfork School District to hire a fourth kindergarten teacher in the 11th hour, Principal Jackie Boshka said. This year's 71 kindergartners, two-thirds of whom are boys, made last year's 48 students seem like a tiny class.

"We were getting up to 24, 25 'students' in a classroom," Boshka said.

That's far too many when statewide accreditation standards only allow for 20 kindergarten students per classroom, she added. The Bigfork School District's standard is up to 18 kindergartners per classroom.

Smiley ended up with 16 students in her class, after two children's parents decided at the last minute to not enroll their children.

Smiley's game plan this fall had been to work as a substitute teacher at Bigfork and Lakeside elementary schools. She and her husband, John, had recently moved back to Montana from Denver.

John Smiley was going to school through Montana State University's nursing program at Kalispell Regional Medical Center, and Jessie Smiley hoped to get plugged into the lower valley's school system.

"I just wanted to get into the system. I was going to do what I had to do," she said. "That was what I was going to do for the year."

She'd applied unsuccessfully in June for a third-grade teaching position at Bigfork Elementary School.

She still checked the district's Web site daily throughout the summer, hoping for more openings she could apply for. Smiley also checked for jobs in Lakeside and Kalispell.

Finally, near the end of August, a kindergarten teaching job was posted on Bigfork's Web site. Smiley sent her application in right away and a little over a week later, she was hired.

She visited the school the Friday she got the job to check out the building's layout and get a sense for what her classroom would look like.

"I didn't know where to begin or what I wanted to do," she said. "On Saturday, I didn't come in at all. I just stepped away from it."

On Sunday morning, Smiley called in reinforcements — her mother and aunts. They went shopping at a dollar store, moved some furniture around and decorated Smiley's classroom.

"They helped me get my mind focused and visualize how I wanted my classroom to look," she said. "It came out great."

It was finished in plenty of time for Smiley to greet her new class two days later on Sept. 8.

She feels right at home teaching kindergarten; Smiley taught kindergartners for a year in Denver before moving to the Flathead.

"I love teaching kindergarten," she said. "They're great. There are lots of personalities in kindergarten.

"They're just getting to know themselves, just getting ready for school, for the big time."

The first few weeks are spent helping kindergartners make the transition to full-time students, Smiley said.

They have to learn the basics: how to raise their hands, how to take turns, how to line up.

Once students get those things down, Smiley will start introducing more academics into their day.

"We slowly ease into the curriculum, into the phonics, the early steps of learning how to read, early basic math skills," Smiley said. "But the biggest thing about kindergarten is learning rituals and routines."

In addition to Smiley, Bigfork Elementary and Middle School hired two new teachers for the 2009-10 school year. They will be profiled in next week's Bigfork Eagle.