Travis L. Niemeyer

Beartooth Elementary School
Billings Public Schools
Billings, Montana
niemeyert@billingsschools.org

Travis Niemeyer is nearing a decade of school leadership experience, building on a prior decade of leadership at the classroom level. At Newman Elementary, his first principalship assignment, Niemeyer transformed a punitive school culture into one that openly embraces collaboration and mutual trust, shifting mindset to view behavior as teachable through dialogue and repetitive practice. As a result, his team was able to cut suspensions by 48 percent. Niemeyer also built a thriving community partnership with an engineering and architecture firm to provide targeted reading and math support to at-risk Newman Elementary students, 70 percent of whom concluded the program with grade-level performance. At Beartooth Elementary School, where Niemeyer has served as principal for the past four years, he has parlayed these experiences to increase parent engagement, shore up professional collaboration, and improve student connection to the school community. He has led his large school district, home to several high-poverty schools like his own, in adopting a school house system that supports positive relationship building and a manners curriculum that promotes community participation and respect. More recently, Niemeyer has had to lead his team in adapting to and overcoming the loss of Title I funding by maximizing resources through strategic scheduling and enhanced PLCs. He is a founding member of Men in Education and serves on the Education Advisory Board for Rocky Mountain College. He holds an M.S. in Educational Leadership from Montana State University and a B.S. in Elementary Education from the University of Nebraska.