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New superintendent brings passion for building community to the Bend-La Pine Schools By Elizabeth Warnimont he Bend-La Pine Schools district board voted unanimously last January to hire Dr. Steve Cook as its newest superintendent. The former Coeur d’Alene, Idaho school superintendent has since hit the ground running, even before the position’s official start date of July 1. Cook taught school for 13 years and then served as an administrator for another 12. At one point, though, he says, he left administration to gain some current teaching experience by substitute teaching. “I felt too far from the classroom,” he explains. “I am a chemistry and physics teacher.” Cook says he was most comfortable teaching at the high school level, though he enjoyed elementary classrooms as well. Since his stint as a sub, he says, “I have now taught at every grade level.” Asked what his priority for the coming school year would be, Cook describes a process that is already underway. “Getting to know the administrators, teachers and staff. Learning names. Building connections with our team of over 2,000 employees. Being at every single school. Riding the bus routes. Visiting the maintenance department. Listening, and building a sense of community.” Bend was an attractive destination for Cook because, he says, “I am most comfortable in a purple environment.” He successfully implemented a strategic plan in the Idaho district with the goal of making every student, and every member of the school community, feel valued, cared for and listened to. “We had a great instructional strategy commitment.” What he felt missing for him personally, though, was a general environment of listening and communication inclusive of multiple viewpoints. “As an educator, as a superintendent, you don’t want to be in a political position – you’re not voted in – yet there are some political aspects,” he says. He had been waiting for the right opportunity to make a change. “My investment is that it must be a comfortable fit personally, for me and my family.” Cook feels that most people in education circles, even on a national level, are near the center politically. “That’s the world I grew up in,” he says. “It is my unrelenting wish for every kid to have the
Photo by Natalie Stephenson
