Burr Ridge D-180 Leader Logs 24 Trips Since 2018

BURR RIDGE, IL – Burr Ridge School District 180 Superintendent Thomas Schneider is going places – literally.

Over 2½ years, the district has spent $31,114 on his travel to destinations across the United States. This period includes the two years before the pandemic and the first six months of 2022, when conferences resumed.

His most frequent destination is Washington, but Schneider has also visited Seattle, Boston, Denver and Oklahoma City.

During the winter, he has gone to Las Vegas, New Orleans, Miami, San Diego, Tampa, Fort Myers and Orlando. One of the next meetings is in Clearwater Beach, Florida.

Schneider's hotel rooms sometimes cost more than $300 a night.

In total, Schneider has logged two dozen trips to conferences, taking him out of the district for two months since 2018.

Patch obtained the information through a public records request.

Nearly all the travel spending has been a part of the district's involvement in two groups – Federal Lands Impacted Schools Association and the National Association of Federally Impacted Schools.

The school gets money each year from the federal government – known as "Impact Aid" – because of Argonne National Laboratory, part of which is within the district's boundaries.

When the laboratory acquired the land more than seven decades ago, that meant a big loss in property tax money for local government bodies.

Under a longstanding program, the federal government provides compensation for school districts that lose parts of their tax base to federal installations.

The district receives about $770,000 a year in federal money, or nearly $4 million since 2018, Schneider said.

But Schneider said the money is about a tenth of what the district would receive if the land were in private hands.

"There are 250 some school districts like ours across the country," he said in an interview in early August.

Some of the costs of Schneider's trips have been picked up by the associations. In early 2021, the National Association of Federally Impacted Schools announced that Schneider was elected its president. He has been on the board for more than a decade.

In a news release on his election, Schneider said the issue of federal aid was personal to him.

"For our students, Impact Aid is an additional 20 minutes a day or nearly two more weeks of instruction per year," he said. "Impact Aid means small class sizes and after-school tutoring twice a week for academically struggling students who happen to be near the poverty line."

The money, he said, also provides seven to eight teachers.

Nearly 90 percent of the district's students are considered low-income, with many of them living in federally subsidized housing.

Schneider, the superintendent for 16 years, plans to retire next summer.

District 180 is the tiniest among 13 districts surveyed in the area. Schneider makes a salary of $283,882, the highest among the 13 superintendents.

The district consists of Burr Ridge Middle School and Anne M. Jeans Elementary School.

According to state data, 432 students are enrolled in the district. That compares to more than 8,000 in Elmhurst School District 205, one of the area districts.