Bonding Billings Into the Future

Profile

When Terry Bouck took over the leadership of Montana’s Billings School District in 2012, he faced a squabbling board of education, classrooms bursting at the seams and a town that hadn’t passed a construction bond issue in 30 years.

In short order, Bouck has shrunk class sizes and now is leading a massive facility renovation project across the district, funded by the biggest bond issue passed by voters in Montana history. The nine-member school board, meanwhile, won 2014 statewide School Board of the Year honors.

How has he done it? Lew Anderson, the district’s bond project manager, has one answer: indefatigability. “This guy works seven days a week. He never quits,” Anderson says. ”I’m constantly getting e-mails on Saturdays and Sundays. I’m like, ‘Terry, it’s the weekend, relax.’”

Anderson, 62, says he was planning to retire two years ago, but stuck around because the dynamism Bouck brought made the job fun again. “As long as he’s here, I’m staying,” he says.

Bouck, who turns 66 in mid-March, came to the 16,300-student district, the state’s largest, after working as superintendent of the Peninsula School District in Gig Harbor, Wash., for six years, and as assistant superintendent, principal and teacher in nearby Tacoma before that.

He spent two three-year stints at the American International School in Lagos, Nigeria, with which Tacoma had a school-to-school relationship. But it wasn’t in Nigeria — where the school’s families were comparatively well-off — where he learned about poverty. He did that while growing up outside of Seattle.

Bouck’s father died when he was 2, and his mother was disabled with a seizure disorder. She remarried, but her husband — Bouck’s stepfather — died when Bouck was in high school. The family survived with help from Bouck’s grandparents and the federal Aid to Dependent Children program.

Bouck was sought after as a pole-vaulter, attending the local community college and then the University of Central Washington on athletic scholarships and financial aid.

After putting in a full career in Washington and with their five children grown, Bouck and his wife, Kristy, looked for a new adventure. They found it in Billings.

“When I interviewed for the job, they said, ‘What are you going to do with a dysfunctional board?’“ he says. “I said communications, respect and working in concert.”

Bouck’s biggest achievement so far is passing the $122 million bond issue in fall 2013. The money is building two new middle schools and renovating most of the 22 elementary schools. Before those spending commitments were made, Anderson says he and Bouck visited every school in the district and attended more than 70 community meetings over a five-month period to generate voter support.

Parent Heidi Duncan, who co-chaired a “Yes for Kids” committee to help pass two mill levies and the bond issue, says Bouck’s “open, transparent and genuine” style won the day.

Voters first passed the levies, each more than $1 million, 10 months into Bouck’s tenure — one to reduce overcrowding and another to fund technology. When the community saw judicious spending plans, support mounted for the bond issue, Duncan says.

The result of that hard work and transparency is a school community that has pulled itself back together.

“We’re not just running around putting out fires,” Anderson says. “We’re looking to the future.”