Denise Juneau
Candidate for Montana State Superintendent of Public Instruction
Enrolled Member of the Three Affiliated Tribes
www.juneauforkids.com/

Congratulations, Denise! Denise won her primary, and she won the general with 50.95% of the vote.  She is the first American Indian woman elected statewide in Montana!

Denise Juneau is running  for the office of Montana State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Denise geared up for a successful campaign by attending INDN’s List’s Campaign Camp in 2007. She is an enrolled member of the Three Affiliated Tribes.

Throughout her life, Denise has attended, taught in, and worked with Montana’s public education system from elementary school through higher education. She attended Head Start and first grade in Billings, Montana, as her parents completed their undergraduate degrees–both in education. Denise received her Bachelor’s Degree in English from  Montana State University in Bozeman. While at MSU, she received a Rockefeller Brother’s Foundation Fellowship. She continued her education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she completed her Master of Education Degree in the “Risk and Prevention for School Aged Children” program.

Denise’s teaching career began in New Town, North Dakota, on the Fort Berthold Reservation, the area where her mother grew up.  Although she loved teaching, Denise believed she could impact education in a broader policy arena. She went to work at the Office of Public Instruction, where she was inspired to attend the University of Montana Law School because she wanted to understand how the law influences and affects our education system.
After graduating law school in 2004, Denise became a Montana Supreme Court Clerk for Justices Jim Regnier and Brian Morris and then later briefly went to work for a national law firm that specialized in Federal Indian law.

Working in the legal profession has sharpened Denise’s principles for fairness, integrity and respect for others. However, her passion has always remained with education, and so she returned to the Montana Office of Public Instruction as the Director of Indian Education where she oversees the implementation of Indian Education For All and the increase in achievement of students.
Being both an attorney and an educator provides Denise an essential lens through which to view federal, state, and local educational needs and to discover ways to meet those needs.  Her unique perspective will allow her to truly lead in the Montana education community.