From pandemic policies to 'purple' politics, outgoing District 214 superintendent looks back on 17 years
At David R. Schuler's first school board meeting in Northwest Suburban High School District 214 in 2005, then-board member Bill Blaine told the new 34-year-old superintendent: "If everything you're doing is working, you're not pushing the envelope far enough."
For the next 17 years, Schuler pushed the envelope in the state's second-largest high school district - "failing forward" was his common refrain. Successes along the way gained him national recognition: from a set of college and career readiness indicators that led to his selection as National Superintendent of the Year to a career pathways program that was praised by first lady Jill Biden during her visit to Rolling Meadows High School in November.
Schuler is leaving the Arlington Heights-based school district at the end of this week to take the helm of AASA, the national School Superintendents Association, which awarded him the national superintendent distinction in 2018.
During an exit interview with the Daily Herald, Schuler, 52, talked about what he got done, what he wishes he had more time to do, how he handled the pandemic, and what changes he's seen in education and politics that he says make him a little "anxious."
Schuler's long tenure in District 214 is attributable to at least two things: He started the job so young ("They're not going to hire a 34-year-old punk from central Wisconsin," he says he remembers thinking). And, after board members Bill Dussling and Alva Kreutzer drove up to Stevens Point to make him a job offer, it came with the direction to try something new.
"I remember that our thinking was that we wanted someone from the outside because we wanted different thinking," said Kreutzer.
Schuler - who had already been a superintendent in Stevens Point and Marshall, a farming community outside Madison - didn't think he'd be in District 214 for long. But four years into the job - with the school board's support - it became clear "this was the place for me."
He started to design what became the district's Career Pathways program, which allows students to get early college credit, industry credentials and internships before leaving high school. What started with manufacturing and health care pathways has grown to 45 concentrations of study. But the change from a more traditional academic setup didn't happen right away.
"I think it was really important early on to make sure that I demonstrated to our entire school community, especially our staff, that anything we were going to do we were going to do together, and that any vision that we had was going to be a collective vision, not just my vision," Schuler said.
And after the No Child Left Behind era - what he referred to as "teaching to a test" - came the Redefining Ready! campaign he launched while he was president of the superintendents organization during the 2015-16 school year. The framework uses metrics like grade-point average, placement in advanced or dual credit courses, attendance and participation in co-curricular activities to define students as being college- and career-ready. Many of those metrics have been incorporated in 25 states, including Illinois.
From the onset of the pandemic in March 2020 through the next 15 months, navigating the public health emergency was "incredibly, incredibly challenging," Schuler said.
But despite some raucous school board meetings and parents who wanted schools to reopen quicker, Schuler stands by the decisions he and the board made, pointing to their policy of following the directives of state public health officials.
"None of us had experienced it," he said. "Everybody was trying to do their best. Even those that weren't agreeing with the position that we said, nobody went into the conversations wanting to be negative. But because we hadn't lived through an experience like that before, the emotions were just incredibly high for an extended period of time."
While Schuler said members of the District 214 community were "decent, honorable and respectful" in expressing their views, he spoke to a level of "vitriol" elsewhere in the suburbs and on the national level.
"I will acknowledge I'm a little anxious about where things will head. I'm glad we've stayed what I would argue is 'purple' and just focusing on nonpartisan, best practices for our students and our school community. I think that's served us very well," Schuler said. "We're not going to agree on everything. You know, that's all fine. But the yelling and screaming and personalized attacks, not just on superintendents, but superintendents' families, is just really unfortunate.
"I've got colleagues that had protesters outside of their homes. I've had colleagues who have police protection. I've had a very good colleague of mine who a community member made a physical threat against his wife and son. And those are things that I think crossed the line and are out of bounds but are much more commonplace now than they've ever been."
Now taking a job on a national level based just outside of Washington, D.C., Schuler said he doesn't see a future for himself in politics, either elected or appointed (like secretary of the Department of Education).
"I love politics and policy, but I think this is the perfect role for me," he said of his new executive director gig at AASA, a professional organization that counts more than 13,000 superintendents, chief executive officers and senior-level school administrators among its membership.
Schuler enjoyed labor peace with the teachers union during his tenure and formed intergovernmental partnerships with legislators, mayors, park districts and community organizations. One thing he won't be able to do - but says he would have liked to - is be part of the conversations for a possible Chicago Bears move to Arlington Heights. He believes it could have both economic and educational impacts on the community.
"Being the superintendent of District 214 is really about being a consensus builder and developing relationships. That's what I've learned. I didn't start at that spot at all," Schuler said. "It really is always trying to see where can we collectively get to 'yes.'"