Western Dubuque Community School District’s mission is three words: better every day.

It’s simple. It’s also a lot harder to actually live than it is to put on a strategic plan. Dr. Dan Butler has spent 23 years trying to live it, starting as a student teacher at Bernard Elementary, then a coach, an assistant principal, a principal, an HR facilitator, and now, heading into his fifth year as superintendent of the entire district.

I wanted to know what “better every day” actually looks like when you’re the one responsible for it, so I sat down with Dr. Butler to record an episode of The Found Podcast.

A District Spread Across 555 Square Miles

Western Dubuque Community School District covers 555 square miles across nineteen communities, roughly 3,600 students, and two high schools, Western Dubuque in Epworth and Cascade here at home. It is one of the larger school districts in the state by geography.

Dan describes it as a small town environment with big school opportunities. Running it well means letting each of those nineteen communities keep its own identity while still holding the whole district to a shared standard. Cascade doesn’t look exactly like Epworth, and it isn’t supposed to. But a student in either place should have access to the same quality of education. Dan talked about that balance as one of the more difficult parts of the job, and also one of the most important.

What the Mission Actually Requires

Dan walked me through how the district’s strategic plan is built: a vision of better every day, a mission to develop individuals through lasting education and opportunities, and values centered on people first, continual growth, and opportunities for all. Underneath that are five commitments, covering everything from providing a safe environment to securing resources responsibly to supporting families.

It would be easy for language like this to stay at the level of a mission statement on a wall. What stood out in our conversation was how specifically Dan could talk about what each part requires in practice, and how it connects back to the eight schools and nineteen communities that make up the district.

High Performance, High Humanity

Dan described what sets the district apart with a phrase he didn’t hesitate over: high performance, high humanity. Iowa’s Department of Education recently began ranking districts by size, and among schools with 1,700 to 2,000 or more students, Western Dubuque ranks fourth in student achievement in the state.

That is a significant number, and Dan was clear that it matters to him. But he spent just as much time talking about the relationships that make up the district: staff who show up for each other, and for kids, in ways that go beyond what’s asked of them. He talked about wanting both of those things to be true at once, strong outcomes and a district that treats people well along the way.

Understanding How Public Schools Are Funded

One part of the conversation I found especially valuable was the discussion of how Iowa funds public education. State supplemental aid, the primary funding mechanism, has been increasing by about two percent a year, while the actual cost of running a district, salaries, fuel, food, has been rising closer to three percent. That gap has to be absorbed somewhere.

Iowa’s Education Savings Account legislation adds another layer. The state is now funding both public and private school options from the same pool of money, and Dan was straightforward about what that means going forward: there is only so much funding available, and both systems are drawing from it.

After we finished recording, Dan stayed on to walk me through a graphic explaining how school funding is organized into different categories, each generated differently and each restricted in how it can be spent, under Iowa Code. It isn’t a simple system, but understanding it changes how you think about a district managing 33 morning bus routes and 33 afternoon bus routes across 555 square miles.

It Takes a Village

When I asked Dan what he wanted listeners to remember, he didn’t point to test scores or funding formulas. He talked about the bus drivers, the paraeducators, the teachers, the administrators, and everyone else doing the work of educating kids across nineteen communities. It takes a village, he said, and Western Dubuque has a good one.

After spending time with Dan, and after years of watching this district up close as a parent, I understand what he means.

Find Dr. Dan Butler

You can learn more about Western Dubuque Community School District at wdbqschools.org, and follow Dan’s writing on leadership at danpbutler.com.

If this conversation gave you a new appreciation for the work happening in public education, or in your own school district, I’d love to hear about it.