A high-ranking administrator in charge of overseeing English language services at Lyons School District 103 lives nearly 1,500 miles away from her local office.
That administrator, Guadalupe Vander Ploeg, lives in Texas.
The LinkedIn and Facebook profiles for Vander Ploeg, the district’s Director of English Language Services, show she lives in El Paso.
It is not clear how her hiring situation came about. Former school board member Tom Weiner raised the issue with the board in November after reading a Facebook posting about Vander Ploeg’s unusual working arrangement.
“She lives in Texas but only comes up here once a month if the district is lucky,” Weiner said during the public comment portion of the school board meeting.
Later, Weiner told the Landmark that Supt. Kristopher Rivera told him that Vander Ploeg mostly works remotely but comes to the district for a week once every four weeks. Weiner also said that Rivera told him that Vander Ploeg does much of her work directing the district’s services for students, who are not native English speakers, by Zoom.
Weiner added that Rivera told him that District 103 pays for Vander Ploeg’s airfare for her trips to Chicago. The Landmark has filed a public records request asking for copies of all invoices or reimbursements for travel expenses for Vander Ploeg. The district has not responded to the request by publication and within the five business day period mandated by law.
The Landmark also called the district’s administrative offices to speak with Vander Ploeg. Later, Vander Ploeg sent a message on LinkedIn stating that all media inquiries should go to Rivera. Rivera did not respond to subsequent requests by phone and email for comment. Vander Ploeg also did not respond to an additional LinkedIn message or an email sent to her by the Landmark.
Vander Ploeg was hired in 2022 at an annual salary of $121,540 to serve the district where at least 36% of students are classified as English Language Learners, state records show. According to the state, 10.5% of the district’s ELL students met or exceeded state standards in English Language Arts. In math, only a scant 0.2% of those students met state benchmarks.
Most public-school administrators live near where they work — certainly closer than 1,500 miles. A spokesperson from the Illinois State Board of Education said that “residency requirements for school administrators are generally permissible and left to the discretion of the district.” The district board’s policies do not appear to address staff or teacher residency requirements.
Under the law, the federal Departments of Education and Justice require public schools with English language learners to ensure they can participate meaningfully and equally in educational programs. They also give schools the flexibility to choose programs for them that are educationally sound.
The National Policy Board for Educational Administration, a trade group focused on research and best practices, has developed a set of professional standards for educational leaders. It calls for, among other things, that leaders act sensitively to students’ interactions, and create a culture of care and support for students. That includes creating and sustaining a school environment in which each student is known, accepted and valued; promoting adult-student, student-peer, and school-community relationships; and cultivating student engagement in school and positive student conduct. Under the guidelines, for teachers and staff, administrators are expected to “establish and sustain a professional culture of engagement and commitment to shared vision, goals, and objectives pertaining to the education of the whole child; high expectations for professional work; ethical and equitable practice; trust and open communication; collaboration, collective efficacy, and continuous individual and organizational learning and improvement.” It is not clear how administrators can meet such standards with a one-week visit in person each month.
According to her LinkedIn profile, Vander Ploeg earned a bachelor of science degree in elementary education from Governors State University in University Park; a master of science degree in educational administration from Purdue University Northwest in Hammond, Indiana, and a doctoral degree in education from Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. It also shows that she works as an adjunct professor of education at Virginia-based Liberty University. Her LinkedIn profile shows that she worked as a project manager for payroll management firm ADP, and as an academic manager for the Hudson Global Scholars program, where she supervised 32 online teachers at private schools. Vander Ploeg also has extensive experience working in online education, having worked for 15 years for K12 a for-profit private education company that specializes in online learning. She holds a Professional Educator License in Illinois.
Weiner was appointed to the school board in 2018 to replace Coleen Shipbaugh who was removed from the school board for not attending meetings. Weiner was defeated a few months later after he ran for a full term in 2019 when a faction supported by the Lyons village president swept all four seats up in the school board election and took control of the school board.
