Jodi Megerle is passionate about River Trails Elementary School District 26.
“I love the size. I love that it’s so very close-knit,” says Megerle, a three-time NIU College of Education alumna.
“Even when I was hired, and when we hire new teachers still, everybody talks about the family feel and that it’s a diamond in the rough. We’re nested between very large high school districts – Arlington Heights and Maine Township – and so we’re kind of like this little, secret school district that everybody feels is like a family to them. That’s the most special piece for me.”
Clearly, that opinion is mutual.
Members of the District 26 Board of Education who gave Megerle a three-year contract when they named her superintendent in 2022 voted in May to extend that agreement by another year before she had logged 12 months on the job.
“That does mean a lot,” says Megerle, who joined the district in 2019 as assistant superintendent for Student Services. “I am very much a people person, so it makes me happy that I’m able to provide that, to meet those expectations of them taking a risk on a first-year superintendent. I’ve not done the job before.”
Serving a portion of Mount Prospect in addition to parts of Prospect Heights and Des Plaines, River Trails enrolls more than 1,500 students from preschool through eighth-grade. The four buildings include one preschool/kindergarten facility, two elementary schools and one middle school.
For Megerle, who holds NIU Ed.D. (2020), Ed.S. (2015) and M.S.Ed. (2002) degrees in Educational Administration, the role is a perfect fit.
Her dissertation examined women in leadership and the superintendency – although the numbers are growing, she says, men still dominate the field – and the topic continues to motivate her.
“I’m really passionate about leadership, and I like growing leaders within the system,” she says. “My team is small but mighty. We have an amazing group of principals and assistant principals, and I like trying to encourage teachers into leadership programs. I love supporting people in that way to help them meet their personal and professional goals.”
Doing so is paying it forward.
Just as Megerle graduated with her bachelor’s degree to teach special education, the cooperating teachers she was practicing under told her that she’d need more college if she wanted to earn more money in the classroom.
“ ‘You need to go get a master’s degree. We just went through the program at Northern. Here’s the guy’s name. Here’s the program. Go get a Type 75,’ ” she remembers. “I had no idea what a Type 75 was, but I was like, ‘OK, I’ll do it.’ There was a cohort in Libertyville and there was another cohort starting in Libertyville.”
Because she was a rookie teacher while also busy coaching on the side – Megerle is a sports lover who played prep volleyball, basketball and softball during her years at Warren Township High School in her hometown of Gurnee – she decided to enroll at NIU as a student-at-large.
None of her new classmates was prepared for such a fresh face.
“I remember sitting in the class, and they were asking everybody how many of years of teaching they had, and I was in my first year,” she says. “And they were like, ‘How did you get in here? You’re supposed to have two or three years of teaching before you can get into the admin.’ I was just taking one class a time. I said, ‘I don’t know. I’m here.’ ”
While she progressed through the program, she simultaneously demonstrated her capabilities on the job.
“As I teacher, I naturally was just taking on extra things,” Megerle says. “My department chair or my assistant principals would say, ‘Hey, I need somebody to help with scheduling final exams,’ or with doing something semi-administrative, and I’d say, ‘Oh, yeah, I’ll do it. I’ll learn how to do that.’ ”
Good at organization, and equipped with that volunteer spirit, she felt ready to transition from teaching after five years: Many of the responsibilities and tasks were those she had gladly accepted when asked, and her department chair was encouraging the move.
That first job was as a middle school assistant principal in Barrington 220 School District.
Over the next 15 years, she would continue serving in principal’s offices there and in Round Lake Area Schools Community Unit School District 116 and Elk Grove-based Community Consolidated School District 59, where she was principal of Friendship Junior High School.
Meanwhile, as a young wife to Scott, stepmother to Nikki (now 27 and married) and mother to Emma (now 16) and Tanna (now 15), Megerle wanted to continue her journey through the Department of Leadership, Educational Psychology and Foundations but worried about juggling work, family and a dissertation.
She opted for the Ed.S. and, four years after its completion, moved to the River Trails central office as an assistant superintendent.
NIU’s relevant coursework, along with clinical assistant professors who were practitioners in the field with contemporary knowledge, provided a strong foundation along with a robust and supportive professional network.
Her successful doctoral defense would come a year later.
“This is now my second year, so I have learned a ton,” she says.
“I’ve always been that kind of person wanting to learn and keep going, and I have had so many experiences as a superintendent that I never would have had as a building principal,” she adds. “Right now, I’m learning a lot about construction as we have some construction plans coming up next summer. I sold a building that we had for sale last year. And there are just so many different things coming across my desk that I didn’t anticipate.”
Perhaps that’s appropriate for someone who didn’t anticipate a career in education – or living and working in and near her hometown.
When she first applied to Arizona State University, having never lived outside of Gurnee, the plan was to never return.
The other plan was a degree in engineering.
“I loved drafting and I loved physics when I was in high school. I loved all the science and the math,” she says, “but when I got my schedule back from Arizona State, it was some really hard-core-level math classes. It was civil engineering. It was building design. I got kind of nervous, like, ‘If I decide that I don’t want to do this, these classes are probably not going to help me out at all.’ So I backed off a little.”
She enrolled the College of Lake County after her parents told her that Arizona State was too expensive for figuring out the new path.
Meanwhile, she continued in her high school job as a cashier at the Piggly Wiggly.
Her frequent bagger was a young man her own age who, she was surprised to learn, had gone to high school with her. Unlike Megerle, who loved everything about school and found it effortless, her coworker had graduated from a special education program for behavioral disorders.
“We worked together every day, and I’d never seen this kid before at school. I had no idea he was in any sort of special programming,” she says. “So that was the start of it for me. I wanted to go into special ed to help kids who really didn’t have it as easy as I had it going through school.”
After eventually fulfilling her Arizona State ambitions, she taught special education in a middle school, loving her opportunities to help students “through that awkward adolescence phase” and to work in teams with other teachers.
Feelings of camaraderie remain with her now.
“The people I work with, and the kids I work with, do some super-amazing things,” she says,
“Things can happen unexpectedly, and when you’re surrounded by people who will jump in and say, ‘What can we do? What can I do to help?’ – when you know you’re working side by side with people who literally will do whatever they need to do make sure kids have what they need and that the buildings are running, and they are working so hard – that’s what inspires me to come to work every day.”
Megerle hopes others join her in that emotion.
“One of my goals is for people to love coming to work every day,” she says. “I try to create an environment, and to model an environment, of a work-life balance. Of supporting people. Of creating a culture that’s welcoming for everybody: for our parents, for our kids, for the teachers and staff working here.”
Parents know they always can reach her, she says.
“When I started, I just put out to the families, ‘Hey, if you want to meet to me, sign up. Here’s a QR code. We’ll sit. We’ll talk. Share your hopes and dreams for the district.’ I also meet with our Parent Teacher Council presidents, and that’s another way to get to know families,” she says.
“Then, as I go to concerts and events, I start seeing some of those same families,” she adds. “Really, it’s just trying to open the door and have conversations. I want to hear from people. I’ve said that right from the beginning: ‘If you have questions, please ask.’ Our district is small enough for me to literally know every family.”
Her own hopes and dreams for River Trails include providing consistency for the youngest children.
“I have about eight years left in my career, so I’m honestly thinking it would be really great to be with these preschoolers into kindergarten and all the way through eighth-grade graduation. That would be really neat,” Megerle says. “I value the relationships that I’ve built with the families, and I would be happy to spend the rest of my career here in River Trails.”
