Beloved teacher, soccer coach, announces retirement in June
By Jen Clancey STAFF WRITER
The night before Jeremy Harder’s interview at the Big Sky School District in August 2000, the then 27-year-old bathed in the Gallatin River and camped at Red Cliff. After his interview, the BSSD team encouraged him to see Big Sky, so Harder drove to the base of Lone Mountain and back down again. By the time he returned from the scenic tour, BSSD was ready to give him a job offer, which Harder accepted, starting a career that’s spanned a quarter century.
For the last 25 years, Harder has worked at the school district, first as a fourth grade teacher and then as the lead in design technology at Ophir Middle School and Lone Peak High School. In June 2025, Harder will close out a career that’s overseen the construction of the district’s STEAM building, planning of annual Yellowstone trips and hundreds of students who’ve learned in his classrooms.
“You know, I kind of came in with this sort of, ‘I’m going to change the world’ thing. Kind of a chip on my shoulder,” Harder said. He learned early on that teaching and running a school is a collaborative effort and can’t be done alone. “All of it has to come together like a fine-tuned machine to make this thing run.”
Harder grew up in New Jersey. His grandfather used to pick Harder up after school and venture into the woods with him, identifying animal tracks and learning about plants and fish. He remembers it as “just learning about the oddities of the natural world.”
This early education inspired Harder to bring his students into nature. Harder began planning a trip to Yellowstone National Park, where students could make connections between their lives and the history of the land, and build relationships. In his 25 years of teaching, Harder has coordinated the trip for fourth and eighth grade students 21 times and led outdoor learning with Big Sky volunteers. The tradition will continue in the hands of science teacher Dr. Kate Eisele with eighth grade classes.
Outdoor experiences were always present in Harder’s curriculum almost on a weekly basis when he taught fourth grade. At that time, he also worked with then kindergarten teacher Erika Frounfelker to teach students life skills.
“We’d connect the fourth graders with the kindergartners to learn how to tie shoes,” Frounfelker said on the phone with EBS. She also recounted times when Harder and Frounfelkers’ classes hiked together on the trails behind the school, the fourth graders leading the way.
“He looks at the whole student,” Frounfelker said. And by doing so, he empowers students to be independent and engage in their own learning, she added. She noted dynamic seating arrangements as another example of this effect, allowing restless students to stand at desks while learning.
She describes Harder’s upcoming goodbye as bittersweet, and that he will leave a legacy of bringing the outdoors into the classroom.
“I am excited for him because I think his next adventure is going to be awesome, but I’m also really sad because I think he should stay,” Frounfelker said. “I think the kids are going to miss him here.” With the technology piece, she saw his role as bringing two separate worlds together. “It’s like meshing the old and the new. He was able to bring and do all of that here at our school.”
Harder taught fourth grade for 18 years until he transitioned into his current role as the head of design and technology in the STEAM building, though he calls his role the facilitator of innovation and creativity and calls the STEAM building—short for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics—“the innovation center.”
“Whether you’re creating arts, you’re creating a wooden box or you’re singing a song, you’re using innovation. You’re trying something new. You are failing a lot to figure out what works,” Harder said. He describes his interests as a three-headed monster, connecting three separate goals: technology, outdoor science and social-emotional wellbeing.
“Too many places, it’s the adults telling the youth what to do, how to do it. I don’t know if that’s the right way. Each day I think it’s less and less the right way.”
—Jeremy Harder
He hopes to explore that social-emotional piece in his next step, continuing a curiosity that he says began three years ago. “These worlds of self-care started falling in my vision, maybe they were always there … but I started taking advantage of them.” He began to volunteer as a Wellness Navigator with Be Well Big Sky, a local organization working to improve mental wellbeing through community connections, and went back to school for a certificate in addictions counseling from Montana State University.
“I think I’m finally starting to understand these human basics that are really difficult to build for me. They have been my whole life,” Harder said, sitting in the STEAM building hallway. The space had grown quiet as classes resumed on Nov. 21. Across the hallway, a student ambled over to him, swinging a tooth on a lanyard. Harder had been meaning to talk to the student.
Harder’s conversation style is consistent across students and adults: he looks people in the eyes, asks how they’re doing and gets on their level. He built a scene with words for the student to relate to a current challenge. Harder told him that when he was younger, he remembered that his instinct was to fight back when someone said something mean. Like digging a hole in the sand at the beach, the hole just kept getting bigger, no matter the actions he took to retaliate. Soon enough, young Harder realized that the hole wasn’t going anywhere.
The student nodded. As Harder went on to offer advice on managing hurt feelings, the student listened and shook his head. Eventually, the conversation turned to discussing problem-solving for a project the student was crafting.
Reflecting with Explore Big Sky, Harder explained the respect he has for young voices, ideas and perspectives. “Too many places, it’s the adults telling the youth what to do, how to do it. I don’t know if that’s the right way. Each day I think it’s less and less the right way.”
Harder doesn’t imagine his presence will be completely gone from Big Sky schools. He would like to be a “lunch dad,” helping the cafeteria team put together meals, and would like to continue coaching soccer as the assistant coach for the Lone Peak boys team. Outside of school, he plans to complete his program in addiction counseling at MSU in the next two years.
“I’m really allowing curiosity to lead right now,” Harder said about his next steps. When asked if he feels ready to leave, Harder said that it’s not quite “ready” that he feels, but an openness to the next chapter.
