Elsie Arntzen (born May 7, 1956) is an American educator and politician from the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columb ...

who serves as the Superintendent of Public Instruction of the State of Montana. Prior to this, she was a member of the

Montana Legislature The Montana State Legislature is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Montana. It is composed of the 100-member Montana House of Representatives and the 50-member Montana Senate. The Montana Constitution dictates that the legislature meet ...

Early life and career

In 1992, Arntzen became a 5th grade school teacher for the Billings School District.

Montana State Legislature

In 2004, Arntzen was elected to Montana House of Representatives for District 53, which includes a portion of

Yellowstone County Yellowstone County is the most populous county in the U.S. state of Montana. As of the 2020 census, the population was 164,731. Its county seat is Billings. Yellowstone County is named for the Yellowstone River which roughly bisects the county ...

. In 2012 Arntzen was elected to the Montana Senate for a four-year term.

Superintendent of Public Instruction

In 2016, Artzen was elected as the Montana Superintendent of Public Instruction, which leads the state's prime education agency, the

Montana Office of Public Instruction The Montana Office of Public Instruction (OPI) is the state education agency of Montana. Elsie Arntzen currently serves as the Montana Superintendent of Public Instruction. The agency is headquartered in Helena Helena may refer to: People *He ...

. In Artzen's first year in office, Montana received $24 million over the course of three years through the

U.S. Department of Education The United States Department of Education is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government. It began operating on May 4, 1980, having been created after the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare was split into the Department ...

's Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy Program, in effort to advance literacy skills in the state. As the newly elected superintendent, Arntzen was responsible in implementing the

Every Student Succeeds Act The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) is a US law passed in December 2015 that governs the United States K–12 public education policy. The law replaced its predecessor, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), and modified but did not eliminate pr ...

(ESSA) in Montana. Her office released their state ESSA plan in September 2017 and subsequently had the plan approved by the U.S. Department of Education in January 2018. In the same year, Arntzen offered new online mental health and suicide prevention resources available for teachers. The program is provided through Montana's Learning Hub through the Project AWARE-MT SOARS grant funding. The contract, with Kognito Interactive Programs, provided unlimited access for all Montana educators, school staff, and OPI partners over a 12-month period. In June 2018, Arntzen announced that Montana was one of ten states to receive a $3.4 million grant from the

U.S. Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national secur ...

for the Troops to Teachers program. Arntzen's Montana Ready initiative has promoted career and technical education, work-based learning, individualized learning, and expanded public-private partnerships. During the 2019 Montana legislative session, she advocated for legislation to keep predators out of Montana classrooms. In an editorial published on January 31, 2019, Arntzen criticized the Montana Public Education Center (MT-PEC) for opposing the Student Safety Accountability Act, which banned sexual activity between an employee of a school district and a student. MT-PEC is noted as being a statewide organization that is composed of the Montana School Boards Association, the School Administrators of Montana, the Montana Quality Education Coalition, the Montana Federation of Public Employees, and the Montana Association of School Business Officials. She is a member of the

Council of Chief State School Officers The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) is a non-partisan, non-profit organization of public officials who head departments of elementary and secondary education in the U.S. states, the District of Columbia, the Department of Defense E ...

School Safety Steering Committee.

Personal life

Arntzen's husband is Steven. They have two children. Arntzen and her family live in

Billings, Montana Billings is the largest city in the U.S. state of Montana, with a population of 117,116 as of the 2020 census. Located in the south-central portion of the state, it is the seat of Yellowstone County and the principal city of the Billings Met ...

. Her husband, Steven is the President and CEO of Century Gaming Technologies. Century Gaming Technologies is the largest route operator of gambling gaming machines in Montana. In 1992, Arntzen became a 5th grade school teacher for the Billings School District.

Electoral history

2004

2006

2008

2010

2012

2016

2020

References

External links

Elsie Arntzen at ballotpedia.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:Arntzen, Elsie 1956 births 21st-century American politicians 21st-century American women politicians Educators from Montana American women educators Living people Republican Party members of the Montana House of Representatives Republican Party Montana state senators Montana State University alumni Politicians from Billings, Montana Superintendents of Public Instruction of Montana Women state legislators in Montana Candidates in the 2014 United States elections