SANDPOINT — Most people at the Lake Pend Oreille School District know that Superintendent Becky Meyer is always working.

She hasn’t taken a sick day since her 28-year-old daughter was born.

So when Meyer, 59, started having some odd swelling in her eye in January, it was no surprise that she ignored it. But then it got worse, her eye began to bulge out of her head, and the eye drops prescribed by her ophthalmologist weren’t working.

“I feel like I usually can get to the other side of anything, and it just kept going and going,” Meyer said.

With a push from her secretary and some teasing over the eyepatch Meyer started wearing, she made an appointment down in Coeur d’Alene. That appointment launched a week of tests that led to a cancer diagnosis in early February.

Caring for the future

Meyer started at the district in 1993 as a K-12 school counselor. She worked across the then-larger district at various grade levels, eventually becoming the head counselor at Sandpoint High School.

She started her doctorate in psychology, hoping to study personality disorders. She had to add a minor content area, so she tacked on administration, but actually working as an administrator “wasn’t even on my radar,” Meyer said.

She did her internship at the district’s alternative school, and when she graduated, was asked to stay on as principal.

“It was the best decision ever,” Meyer said. “It was where I learned the most about students, families, life, and how to be a leader by being the alternative school principal.”

She then headed to Sandpoint High School, where she served as principal for eight years. After a handful of years as superintendent of nearby Lakeland School District, Meyer returned to lead Lake Pend Oreille in 2023.

The move was like coming home, she said. The district’s teachers, staff and school board work hard and put students first, she said.

“This board is very peaceful, student-centered, staff supportive,” Meyer said.  “They truly are trying to support what the community wants.”

Since then, Meyer has focused on launching new programs and initiatives. The district will open a new career technical building next fall.

So when she began having health issues, Meyer tried to push them off.

Once she saw an optometrist in Coeur d’Alene, things moved quickly. She was sent off for a scan that same day, where doctors found a mass behind her eye. That was followed by a series of additional scans.

Three days later, Meyer was meeting with an eye surgeon. A biopsy revealed she had an aggressive form of non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma B.

Now, Meyer is thankful for the nagging swelling in her eye that alerted her to a problem.

“If it hadn’t done that, and it was, back farther… I would have already been dead because it would have just reproduced and gone too far and been throughout everything so fast,” Meyer said.

Meyer began a course of chemotherapy just days after she was diagnosed. Her last session was earlier this month, and her PET scan to see how the cancer responded is this week.

Through it all, Meyer wanted to keep working.

“Mainly because we’re doing so many great things in the district, and I just couldn’t not be involved,” Meyer said.

Assistant Superintendent Casey McLaughlin said it was no surprise Meyer wanted to keep working.

“She absolutely desires to work,” he said. “She wants to.”

Meyer has recognized she can’t keep up with her normal pace of work, he said.

“She’s been incredible with delegating, which I would have to give that to her because she doesn’t always love to do that,” he said.

Taking a step back has proved to Meyer how great her team is.

“It’s been a significant learning opportunity for me to step back and watch everybody else’s green light shine,” she said, referencing a district initiative to showcase people’s strengths.

People have also been understanding, she said, of her slower pace.

“Ever since I’ve been a superintendent, I get paid the highest, the most amount in this district, I should be working the hardest, Meyer said. “I feel super responsible, but people have been really gracious and stepped up and been very helpful.”

One of the hardest parts of the last few weeks has been that she can no longer visit schools because of chemotherapy’s effect on her immune system.