Richard Drury has a wife and two grown sons. But Drury’s family just expanded almost exponentially with a simple stroke of his pen, placing about 15,000 people under his tutelage.
Community Unit School District 200 officials announced last week that the Wisconsin educator will succeed retiring Superintendent Gary Catalani at the end of the academic year. The School Board unanimously approved a three-year contract Feb. 14 with a base salary of $200,000.
Earlier that day, Drury was given a tour of the district and introduced to various school leaders, teachers and union representatives.
“I came away from today feeling very good about the decision to come to Wheaton-Warrenville,” he said during the board meeting that evening. “The opportunity here is just beyond my wildest imagination. It’s truly what I thought it was — a fantastic community.”
Drury works as the top administrator in the Muskego-Norway School District, which covers an area southwest of Milwaukee, where he has been since 1995. The district is a K-12 system including 4,900 students in five elementary schools, two middle schools and one high school.
Before spending 18 years in a superintendent’s position in Michigan and Wisconsin, Drury served as a principal for 12 years and a classroom teacher for seven years.
He graduated with an undergraduate degree in English language and literature from Eastern Michigan University and then proceeded to earn his master’s in curriculum and supervision from Northern Illinois University. Drury later received his doctorate in educational leadership from Western Michigan University.
“We are extremely excited,” School Board President Andy Johnson said in a statement. “He has the background, the commitment and the personal characteristics that will serve our communities well and enable us to move to the next level of excellence.”
District 200’s search firm recruited and screened about 50 applicants and later recommended five names to the board, and Drury was one of three finalists. Two board members visited each candidate’s districts after a second round of interviews before the group reconvened to vote.
After receiving some criticism for what resident Joe Mahady deemed “overly secretive” negotiations when compared to Catalani’s hiring process, Johnson defended the district’s need for confidentiality in the replacement proceedings since all of the finalists were sitting superintendents.
Johnson said that board members were guided by feedback that residents and staffers provided during more than a dozen focus groups held late last year to help identify what the community wanted in a superintendent.
District officials plan to offer opportunities later in the school year for staff members and the public to meet Drury.
Catalani has served as superintendent for the last eight years. Drury will officially take the helm Sunday, July 1.