After 35 years working in education, Jefferson High School Superintendent Tim Norbeck is stepping away. Norbeck—who over nine years as superintendent led the school through academic program expansion, the coronavirus pandemic and the successful passage of a $14.58 million facilities bond for major expansions—informed the school’s board of trustees in March that he would not renew his contract once it expires on June 30.
“I’ve thought about it. I’ve thought about it before, as you know,” he told The Monitor in a phone call on Monday, referencing his consideration of resigning in December 2020. “I also wanted to honor my contract, and my contract ends June 30. They’d offered another one. I decided I’d like to try something different, whatever that happens to be. I don’t have anything in the works. Kind of an interesting deal at 58, but we’ll see what happens.”
Larry Rasch, the lone trustee on the board who has served for all of Norbeck’s nine years as superintendent, said in a call Monday evening that the board would search internally for a new superintendent, in addition to an external search assisted by the Montana School Board Association, and that the board aimed to smooth the transition by hiring a new superintendent before Norbeck departs.
“Like I told Tim when he gave us his resignation, he set the bar very high. We’ve been very very pleased with his performance since he’s been there and all the things he’s done,” Rasch said. “He went over and beyond.”
Rasch said he didn’t think Norbeck’s departure would interrupt the school’s progress on making its bond-funded expansion a reality, despite Norbeck’s role in shepherding the bond to approval in November 2021.
“It would rest better on my shoulders if Tim was there, and of course he would get to see the end product of it, but I don’t see any hiccups with him leaving,” Rasch said, noting the involvement of the school’s facilities manager and principal. “I think he’s left it in good hands between Dan [Sturdevant] and Mike [Moodry]. We pretty much have most of the wheels in place already.”
Nonetheless, Rasch said, “He’s set a lot of things in place that I don’t think will go away once he leaves … he’s going to be sorely missed.”
Norbeck expressed a similar sentiment: “It’s tough because there’s so many great things going on. It’s been a lot of accomplishment in my nine years, and I’m pretty proud of them. But it’s not about me, it’s about the team.”
That team, including the board, administrators and teachers at JHS, as well as leaders in the Jefferson County and city of Boulder governments, he said, made it possible to grow enrollment by 100 students, communicate the school’s facilities needs to the community and rally 61% support for the bond, and weather a variety of sudden changes and disruptions to education wrought by the pandemic.
Sturdevant, 79, the school’s facilities manager and athletic director, has covered Panther sports for The Monitor for 32 years. He’s worked at JHS for 13 years, often in close coordination with Norbeck. Norbeck, Sturdevant said, “really will be missed.”
“I hate to see him leave. He’s done a fantastic job at Jefferson High School. He’s changed things around and made it for the better for everything—just a super guy,” he said. “The biggest thing is he’s got the bond approved—not him, but he’s the one who got it started.”
What set Norbeck apart, Sturdevant said, was his dedication to the students at Jefferson High—a passion on full display when, for example, Norbeck would bring his favorite pancake mix to school to cook breakfast for the kids.
“Love for kids and making sure they succeed in life is his number one priority,” Sturdevant said.
To Rasch, one of Norbeck’s defining characteristics was his “dedication—the guy goes over and above whatever the board has asked of him. Pretty much, we’ll give him a task or an idea of where we want to head, and he will jump through all the hoops to make it happen, and he’ll bring us more info than we actually requested. And community involvement—he’s at the games … totally immersed himself in the community.”
Norbeck grew up in Butte and still lives there, commuting up to Boulder each day. He originally studied mining engineering at Montana Tech but “couldn’t see myself out in the sticks” working at mines, so he transferred to Carroll College in Helena, where he played football. It was there, with a heavy math and science background, that “my head football coach said, ‘you’d be a good teacher,’ and that’s how it all started.”
He spent five years teaching math and science, and coaching football, wrestling, and track and field, at a small high school outside Idaho Falls before he moved up to Idaho Falls High School—”a big five-A school”—where he spent 10 years teaching and eventually headed the math department.
Around 1997, Norbeck and his family moved back home to Butte. He spent a year teaching at East Middle School in Butte before taking a position teaching calculus and physics at his alma mater, Butte Central Catholic High School.
He took a five-year break from education to work in statistical data and grant writing for an engineering company in Butte before returning to Butte Central, this time as principal. After a decade as the school’s principal, he applied and was hired to fill a superintendent vacancy at Jefferson High.
“They took a chance on me,” he said, “and it’s been a good nine years.”
Guiding him over his decades in education was that “I’ve always been taught at an early age to be a servant.”
Over the years, he said, he learned that “kids see right through you if you’re not a part of what they’re trying to do. I’ve always been willing to try something if I thought it was to better kids. Not all of it’s worked but 99% of them have.”
One of the things he said hasn’t worked: Finding solutions to Boulder’s lack of housing, especially affordable housing, that could allow new hires to move to town. The issue, he said, “has compounded even more” because of the pandemic.
“You hire a young teacher here, there is no housing, number one,” he lamented. “Number two, how do they afford it?”
Other structural challenges affecting the school and community have come around, though. Partnering with Boulder Elementary, the city of Boulder and Jefferson County, Norbeck worked with other leaders to secure a building to serve as a licensed child care facility in Boulder, as well as a lot by the elementary school to place the building on.
“We wouldn’t have gotten the child care done if it wasn’t for Tim Norbeck and [Elementary Superintendent] Jeff Elliott,” Boulder Mayor Rusty Giulio said in a call on Tuesday. “Between the two of them, they were in the position to make that happen and come together.”
Giulio, now in the first year of his second four-year term as mayor, worked with Norbeck on the Boulder Development Fund, the Boulder Transition Advisory Committee and its spinoff group addressing child care. He praised Norbeck as being “really down to earth, really thoughtful when he’s making a decision.”
“I like working with him. He’s a great guy. He’s got positive thoughts for the community and works hard for it,” Giulio said. “I’m a conservative and I always joke that he’s a liberal, but he’s a moderate … always working for the betterment of the people involved. It’s just refreshing to deal with him. You couldn’t find a better person to look for the positive side of everything he’s involved in.”
What will he be involved in next? Pressed on his future plans, Norbeck remained reticent. He said his friends and professional colleagues “can’t fathom the fact that I said I want to do something different,” but that “nothing’s up,” and he’s simply ready to move on. He joked that he could sell a house he’s working to flip and “take a gap year” like some kids do before college.
“Not quite sure what I’m going to do,” he said. “This is the first time in 35 years that I don’t have a plan.”
