After 26 years in various roles at the West Ada district, Marcus Myers will take the top job at the Kuna district.

Trustees last month hired him to replace Kim Bekkedahl. She replaced long-time Kuna superintendent Wendy Johnson, who left for an administrative role with the Boise district and was recently promoted to superintendent.

The board offered Myers a three-year contract and a $180,000 annual salary, according to an offer letter from trustees. Johnson and Myers both start July 1, in alignment with the fiscal year. 

“I really wanted someone who could help us educationally,” said Kuna trustee Hillary Lowe. “I thought that he is knowledgeable in education.”

But long before taking Kuna’s top job, Myers’ path to education was shaped by family, service and a career in school leadership that’s seen recent controversy.

He hopes to translate his experience — and challenges — into playing a bigger role in a smaller district that reminds him of his childhood.

“I’ll shake hands with more parents and families, and I’ll have an opportunity to get to know them better,” Myers said.

‘I fell in love with it’: Myers discovers education

Myers’ journey to Kuna started by chance at the University of Nevada, Reno. 

From a young age, his parents expected him to pursue higher education and public service — a path both of his brothers pursued. One is a teacher, the other a sheriff’s deputy.

But Myers initially considered pre-med or journalism.

His path turned toward teaching when he received a college grant that required him to read to students in English and Spanish at Agnes Risley Elementary in Sparks, Nevada.

“I’d sit down with a chair in the middle of the cafeteria. I had a basket of books. Some were in Spanish, some were in English,” Myers said. “I fell in love with it.” 

He took a job at the school as a paraprofessional and changed his major to elementary education.

He later moved to Boise, finishing his bachelor’s degree at Boise State and working at the university’s College of Education.

In the summers, Myers taught STEM and fishing classes at the Boise district’s Garfield Elementary and now-demolished Cole Elementary.

“It was fantastic — it was a great program,” he said of his time at Boise.

Myers joins West Ada

In 2000, Myers took a fifth-grade teaching job at West Ada’s Ustick Elementary, in what was then the Meridian School District.

Five years later, he transferred to River Valley Elementary. His first week there, overcrowding led the school to switch his fifth-grade class to one with a combination of fourth- and fifth-grade students. He didn’t know the fourth-grade curriculum.

Still, he stuck out to school leaders and met former West Ada administrator Denise Shumway, who became his mentor.

“I’ve always been taught that good leaders look for the next generation of leaders,” said Shumway, who retired as West Ada’s director of federal programs in 2021.

Myers interned with Shumway and began working part-time in an administrative role at elementary schools.

“He took to it like a duck to water,” Shumway said.

Her time investment paid off. After earning a master’s degree in educational leadership, Myers became Meridian Elementary’s principal. Shumway became the district’s director of federal programs.

Meridian Elementary is a Title I school, meaning it receives federal funding to support many students from low-income families. Myers continued working closely with Shumway, who oversaw the district’s federal funding.

Shumway described Meridian Elementary as a “tough call for a young principal” but said Myers navigated struggles “beautifully.” He eased tensions between faculty and families with unstable home lives, she said, and he fostered a connection between the school and the Meridian Boys and Girls Club.

After nearly a decade at Meridian Elementary, Myers became one of West Ada’s region directors — essentially an area superintendent. He hired West Ada’s current superintendent, Derek Bub, to be a principal.

Then he joined the district’s C-suite as chief academic officer, where he faced one of the biggest tests of his career.

Poster controversy tests Myers’ leadership

Last March, a state law that had not yet been codified prohibited teachers from displaying flags or banners depicting political viewpoints.

In an effort to follow the pending law, Myers and his team enforced a district policy on classroom displays by directing teacher Sarah Inama to remove posters in her classroom, including one that read “Everyone Is Welcome Here.”

Myers said he received hundreds of emails after Inama spoke on television about the matter.

A viral standoff between the teacher and her district ensued, and Inama left West Ada to work in the neighboring Boise district.

Click here for our coverage of the ongoing battle between Inama and West Ada.

Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador later said the sign was illegal, and West Ada trustees approved policy in agreement with the opinion.

Inama has since sued West Ada and five other defendants, including the attorney general, asking a federal judge to declare the law unconstitutional. All parties have countered and asked for the lawsuit to be dismissed. 

Myers addressed the issue by stressing his role as an administrator: He provides the board with input, but his job is also to carry out policies trustees approve.

So when it came to enforcing policy, which was created before he was the district’s chief academic officer, he said he did his job.

But it wasn’t perfect, he admits: “You bet there are leadership lessons to be learned through that.”

Myers took much of the flak, with his name and face appearing on national television. He admits he could have fired back at people who criticized him or done more interviews. But he didn’t want to be distracted from his job, he said. “I think, at the end of the day, there’s respect for that, for not being reactive.”

Myers aims to strengthen community ties in Kuna 

Myers recalled attending his K-8 school, Union Hill, in his remote Northern California hometown, a forested unincorporated community called Cedar Ridge. The school was a community hub.

“We would walk to Joe’s Country Store for PE,” Myers said. “It was a trail in the woods.”

The school’s impact on his upbringing and his connection to the community led him to become an educator, Myers said.

Kuna, where he lived in the early 2000s, gives him a similar sense of community.

So when the Kuna job opened, he applied. 

Only Lowe commented on Myers’ hiring, despite the unanimous decision to hire him. Kuna will issue Myers’ contract with other employee contracts in June, spokeswoman Allison Westfall told EdNews. 

Meanwhile, Myers is gearing up for leadership in districts that will look much different than West Ada, which operates 60 schools. Kuna has 12.

He’ll start by listening, he said. At a recent community forum, he told attendees, “I was given two ears and one mouth for a reason.” He then detailed plans to learn the inner workings of the district and its community.

He wants to work with other local leaders.

“I get the opportunity to get to know the Kuna mayor really well … to know Kuna businesses really well and the Kuna Chamber really well,” he said. “But even more importantly, I get the opportunity to get to know the Kuna students very well.”

He hopes to build deeper connections with patrons. Rather than juggling cities, he’ll be juggling schools.

“I’m trying to get back to me at Union Hill,” Myers said.