Brian Barnhart, superintendent of Western Springs School District 101 — and a 25-year employee of the district — officially retires June 30.
The 57-year-old Barnhart spoke with the Doings recently about his background, education, and work history, his thoughts on District 101, and the Western Springs community.
“I feel like the community continues to trust the district, that we do really good things in partnership with our parents and we’re still a great place for kids to grow up and be kids,” he said. “That trust between the community and the school district is probably what I’m most proud of.”
Barnhart, born and raised in the western suburbs of Cleveland Ohio, earned his bachelor’s degree in Secondary Mathematics Education from Bowling Green State University and taught four years in a suburban Cleveland district, teaching and coaching every semester, while earning his master’s degree, also from Bowling Green.
Barnhart originally came to the Chicago area to complete his doctoral studies at Northwestern University, after which he moved back to Ohio and served in a school district as an assistant high school principal and assistant superintendent for curriculum and technology for four years.
While working on his doctorate at Northwestern, Barnhart met his future wife, married, and sent out resumes to several school districts. He was hired as interim principal for one year at McClure Junior High School.
But midway through that year at McClure, he was promoted to permanent principal, a position he held for three years. Barnhart was then made district superintendent, a position he’s held for 22 years.
Regarding his tenure at District 101, Barnhart stressed that the District’s record with special needs students is one that the district can be proud of, particularly sending very few students out of the district because of not having the resources to keep them at home.
“We try to keep all of our kids in district, no matter what their challenges might be,” he said. “I’m really proud of that … we have a really high percentage of our kids who were educated here.”
Barnhart also pointed to the three National Blue Ribbons for outstanding performance awarded to District 101 schools in the recent past, two to McClure and one to Forest Hills. He was particularly pleased with the district’s performance during the Covid pandemic.
“I could talk for an hour about the challenges of COVID,” he said. “Looking back with the benefit of hindsight, we were dealing with some pretty strong mandates from groups outside of District 101 to adhere to…people were doing the best they could.”
Barnhart said District 101 had a solid record during the pandemic compared to many school districts.
“We pride ourselves on lots of local control and we do things we think are best for our kids and our families,” he said. “I’m very proud of the fact that other than that Spring (of 2020), when everything in the world shut down, we were in school every single day after that. We were on a split schedule for a while, but we never went remote. I’m really proud of that.”
Although he will be retiring from his position with District 101, Barnhart isn’t retiring altogether, indicating that he would be staying busy as a consultant.
“I’m going to take July and August off, have a family trip planned, going to work on my golf game a little bit,” he said. “I love traveling, and we’ve done a fair amount of traveling, but we’re looking forward to doing a lot more. We’re a golf family … and we travel to play golf.”
Barnhart also said that with his twin sons both working in the Chicago area, he and his wife would stay in their Naperville-area home for the foreseeable future.
Barnhart spoke positively of his replacement, Assistant Superintendent Sarah Coffey.
“The only advice I have for Sarah is to keep being herself because she is a tremendous leader,” Barnhart said.
Coffey has spent her entire professional career at District 101, being hired straight out of college. She began her career in 1999 when she was hired as an English Language Arts teacher at McClure Junior High. She took on the role of Assistant Principal at McClure in 2005, serving there until being chosen as principal of Laidlaw Elementary School, where she served from 2009-2013.
In 2013, Coffey continued her career in-district when she was made Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction, the position she currently holds.
She will officially take the helm of District 101 on July 1.
Hank Beckman is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.