Prairieview Principal: Small District Offers Big Benefits

Janeise Schultz is principal at  in Downers Grove. She has worked for  for more than 20 years, starting as a fourth and fifth grade teacher and then becoming principal of  before moving to Prairieview. She has been principal at Prairieview for four years.

She is married and lives in Downers Grove.

Q: Did you always want to be principal?

A: I went to college for education. When I came out, the market was flooded. You couldn’t get a teaching job similar to what it is today. I ended up working at Electro Motor in LaGrange. It was an all-male field. It was kind of fun because I was the first woman breaking the gender barrier. I worked there for 13 years.

Then I got married, and I was at the point in my life where I wanted to do what I wanted to do. I was doing very well, but Electro Motor gave buy-outs. I had a lovely boss and was just newly married and I wanted to raise a family and he said go home and try. So I left Electro Motor, went and tried to have a family and couldn’t.

So then I had to revamp and think, what do I want to do with my life? I always enjoyed teaching so I went to be a substitute teacher. Everyone told me if you think this is great, you should have your own classroom. I have to laugh because I live across the street. I applied here. I got in. I thought, is this perfect or what? It was meant to be.

Ten years into it, there was a job opening for a principal and I thought this kind of combines both business and education and I thought what a perfect fit.

I really do miss students because you have a special rapport with students that you don’t have with anybody else. Still with my young teachers, I can get that rapport because now I’m teaching them to teach. So I do enjoy that.

Q: Do you miss being in the classroom?

A: You don’t touch children as much as you do when you’re in the classroom. I just went to a 30threunion of my class. It was like they were my own children. I was so proud of what they all had accomplished and they all remembered me, which made me real proud.

I have rapport with students I have now, but not to that extent. When they’re 30 years old, they’re not going to remember Mrs. Schultz their principal where they remembered Mrs. Schultz, their fifth grade teacher. So that’s kind of sad. But the teachers I’m sure will remember me. We have a great group here. 

Q: What do you like about being principal?

A: I like that you deal with three sets of individuals. You’re dealing with parents, you’re dealing with the teachers and you’re dealing with the students.

Even though I haven’t been a parent, I can see their side. I’ve had parents. I always used to tell my parents, you’re your child’s best advocate. If you’re not in there fighting for them, then nobody fights harder than a mother for their baby. So if I keep that in the back of my mind, I can deal with parents that are stressful over their own child and be able to see their side. 

I can see the teachers’ side because I was a teacher for so many years. And students – I’m still a student. I’m just finishing up (a doctorate from Northern Illinois University)  so I can see their side. So I see all three ends of the continuum. It’s kind of fun.

Q: How have the children changed over your years of being a teacher and principal?

A: Basically, they’re all the same. Education has moved a little bit with all the electronics, all the fast-moving. What we maybe would have taught in third grade, we’re now teaching in first grade. So everything has moved down as it should. If we plan to fight within the world economy, we have to move along a little faster. And that I enjoy because I enjoy moving along and trying to be on the cutting edge. And moving my students along to be on the cutting edge.

Q: Have parents changed or are they still pretty much the same?

 A: The majority of parents are.  Those parents who are average parents or the parents that really push their children have been around forever. But those that have slacked off have really slacked off. They always use to have some say but I have some parents who the child has the say - ‘I’ll go home and ask my daughter or son.’ And that’s kind of sad. But the majority of the parents are parents. They want the best for their child. They want their child to do well. That’s all anybody asks of their kids.

Q: What are the biggest challenges of being principal?

A: I would say the budget. Students are fabulous and the parents are fine, too. Finding it in your budget for textbooks, for the things that – I would love for my early childhood to have iPads. I would love nothing more than to say 'Okay, I’m going to outfit this whole group.'

Right now, I’m working with the PTO who is fantastic to me; we have one full class set of laptops. I would like to get each grade level a full set of laptops. But again, that’s money, and we’ll chip away at it a little bit at a time. But if I could, that would be hands-down, I would be buying laptops for every student. We have students who struggle with handwriting. In today’s world, if you can type you’re fine.   

Q: What do you like best about Prairieview and District 66?

A: Our district is great because it is small and we’re able to all talk to each other. You can have a child go through K-8 with the same philosophy, which is real nice. We now have PBIS (Positive Behavior Interventions and Support), it’s the same philosophy from K on. We have RTI (Response to Intervention), same philosophy and that’s nice. It’s not - we’re going to a different school and it’s a whole new ballgame. The child feels secure going from place to place.

I love Prairieview because I really do enjoy (grades) three through five. To me, it’s the last time where you really can make an impression on a student. This is my own personal feeling, but three through five, you’re still molding the child and they’re at that age of understanding.

When they’re K, one and two, you can help direct them but you’re not quite sure why you’re directing them. Three through five, they know why you're directing them and if you can get them on that path, because once they leave and they’re in high school, they’ve already been established, it’s kind of hard to change their direction. That’s the thing I like about three, four and five. I think it’s a great grade level to be teaching at and be principal of.

Q: What goals or changes do you have for the fall?

A: We’re trying to be more proficient in our RTI delivering, our math RTI delivering, our PBIS, it’s our second year. So we should be more stream-lined with that.

Q: How did the first year go?

A: It went very well. We have expectations for different areas which we tried to teach all in one day. Perhaps, not the best. We’ll now split it into two days. Little kind of tweaks. Nothing really major.

And this next year, we have a new MAPS (Measure of Academic Progress) testing program which is an assessment program that we do three times a year to measure student growth. We’ve got three data points right now, really to see any kind of trend or anything that’s going on, you need a little more. That’s going to be our biggest focus – learning how to use the assessment data that we bought and how to increase student growth.

Q: Are the students doing pretty well?

A: Oh yes, we’ve got a real good district. We’ve got a real good district as far as our gifted and we’ve got parents who are there for their students. That helps quite a bit. We’re also kind of getting known for being good with our special education program here, too. So that’s nice because it’s nice to be known on both spectrums. We’ve been able to touch a lot of students that could have slipped through.

Q: What do you want the kids to get out of being here at Prairieview?

A: Respect for each other. I think that’s real important. I think we try and instill that.

A quest to go on to do the best that you can possibly do. I’m always saying ‘Be the best of the best of the best,’ but that’s important.

To be caring, and I think PBIS helps that in a way of having them recognize their neighbor and care about their neighbor. That will hold you through life no matter what you do.

Q: What do you do outside of school?

 A: We used to do big boating on Lake Michigan, where we lived on the boat all during the summer. Then we did skiing, Colorado every year. My husband is very adventurous.

Now we are into motorcycle riding. He does trips all over the United States. I go to Milwaukee – that’s about my farthest, or Starved Rock. 

We have our place in Florida that we go down to. He comes up to visit me or I go down there on the weekends. He’s retired.

Every once and a while he’ll say ‘Is it time (to retire)?’ And I say 'When it’s time, I’ll tell you it’s time.' But it’s not time yet. I’m a firm believer in, you can’t walk away. When you know you’re ready to go, you’re ready to go. Because you can’t walk back.

Here’s my one thing: Every day I walk in the door with a smile on my face. The day I walk in and I’m not smiling, that’s the day I should leave. To get up every morning to be excited to come in and to be here at 6:30 a.m. when I don’t have to be here until 8:00 a.m. -- that tells me that I enjoy my job.

I enjoy the people I work with. I think my superintendent is wonderful. I truly do enjoy everybody. I can’t imagine working in a job where every day you’re dragging in, thinking ‘Oh my gosh, I don’t want to be here.’ How horrible. Life’s too short.

Look at me, this is my second full-time career, and I still love it. I did love Electro Motor, too, but I had other quests in line and that didn’t work out so this is perfect. God’s way of saying this is what you’re going to do. Instead of having one (child), I’ve got 400.