DES MOINES, Iowa — Dr. Ian Roberts is a former Olympian, an author and motivational speaker who began his second year as Superintendent of Des Moines Public Schools. WHO 13’s Courtney Greene wraps up her special reports talking with Dr. Roberts about his accomplishments, goals for the future and how long he sees himself in Des Moines.

“I anchor everything that I do, as cliché as it sounds, on what is best for children and am I making the right decisions to inspire the 5,000 employees?”

The Des Moines School District recently took up the topic of restricting cell phones next school year.

“I have a board that understands the importance of making mission critical decisions that are anchored in data. And so I have a board that is willing to have those courageous conversations where we may not necessarily all agree on a decision at a certain time, but we always find a way to compromise.”

One area Roberts won’t compromise, is finding new ways to engage with families who may not be involved in their children’s education.

“And so what I’ve been doing is the third or last Friday of every month I go into different communities and have these 90 minute coffee chats and essentially somewhere I find a local coffee shop, reach out to the owners weeks before and ask them if we can come and have these conversations here. And every single business that we’ve reached out to thus far obliged. I realized that while we want to encourage community members and parents to meet with us in K-12 education, we have not necessarily made it convenient for folks, we always want them to come to this big district office or to one of our schools. And so I’ve decided to go into the communities.”

And it’s making a difference.

“The second sort of key approach for me is to make sure that every single person, every adult in this district understands and is reminded daily that we are an academic institution, an education organization, which means that we have to be incredibly focused on instruction and instructional practices that are of a high quality. I want to make sure that the public schools become known as that school system here in Iowa that provides every student with quality education outcomes.”

Free breakfast and lunch (including dishes that reflect different cultures), expanding preschool and adding free Montessori schools are some notable first year accomplishments. So is recruiting and retaining teachers and administrators who reflect the students they serve.

“The one public schools is a majority minority school system. Our largest general population, Latinx 32%, 31% white students, 22% African-Americans, but more than 95% of our teachers and leaders are white … Teaching them instruction that is meaningful, that is affirming, that is grade level and that is rigorous. And so we are seeing some of the early fruits of those investments already. I’m proud of the work we are doing and the strides we’re making, but while acknowledging that we have a long way to go, but again, since this is a destination for me, we’re going to get this done.”

There are also ongoing discussions to address declining enrollment, piloting a program to keep sixth–graders in elementary schools, like Oak Park on Des Moines’ north side, one more year, and encouraging policymakers to continue strong support of public education. And Roberts says the 600 students who are homeless keep him up at night.

“I intend to continue to partner with every legislator, every state official, to make sure that everyone is on the same page about why quality public education can be a game changer for every Iowan. And we have a lot of community partners, right, that are providing them with temporary or they’re benefiting from our food pantries. I want us to get to this place whereby we can get a position where our funding allows us to sort of meet the needs, the basic needs of all of our families. They’re not asking for anything that is luxurious.”

As Roberts continues his work into year two, he sees Des Moines not as a stop on his career journey.

“I see the mine as a destination. If you’d asked me this question a year ago, there was uncertainty. But now, having been invited into this community and doing the work in this school district, Des Moines is home. It feels like home. I travel the country to attend conferences or other professional engagements, and it feels really good to say I’m going home.”

Latest Metro News: