Jeff Schumacher (Ankeny Community School District school board At-large, Iowa, candidate 2025)

Jeff Schumacher

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Nonpartisan

Candidate, Ankeny Community School District school board At-large

Elections and appointments

Next election

November 4, 2025

Education

Bachelor's

Drake University

Graduate

Iowa State University, 2008

Personal

Profession

Retired

Contact

Campaign website

Campaign Facebook

Jeff Schumacher is running for election to the Ankeny Community School District school board At-large in Iowa. He is on the ballot in the general election on November 4, 2025.^[source]

Schumacher completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2025. Click here to read the survey answers.

Biography

Jeff Schumacher provided the following biographical information via Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey on July 7, 2025:

• Birth date: October 29, 1962
• Bachelor's: Drake University
• Graduate: University of Iowa, 1991
• Graduate: Iowa State University, 2008
• Gender: Male
• Profession: Retired
• Incumbent officeholder: No
• Campaign slogan: Our Ankeny Schools have build our Ankeny Community. When we invest in our schools, we grow our community.
• Campaign website
• Campaign Facebook

Elections

General election

The general election will occur on November 4, 2025.

General election for Ankeny Community School District school board At-large (3 seats)

Joy Burk, Roxanne Petersen, Julian Rachu, and Jeff Schumacher are running in the general election for Ankeny Community School District school board At-large on November 4, 2025.

		Candidate
	Submit photo	Joy Burk (Nonpartisan)
	Submit photo	Roxanne Petersen (Nonpartisan)
	Submit photo	Julian Rachu (Nonpartisan)
	Submit photo	Jeff Schumacher (Nonpartisan)

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	Incumbency information for this election was not available.
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
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Endorsements

Schumacher received the following endorsements. To send us additional endorsements, click here.

• Ankeny Area Democrats

Campaign themes

Ballotpedia survey responses

See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection

Jeff Schumacher completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2025. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Schumacher's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.

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Who are you? Tell us about yourself.

I am a dedicated and lifelong public educator with the last 28 years of my career spent as building level principal in a middle school in the Ankeny Community School District. We have raised two children trough the K-12 school system, both of whom have returned to Ankeny to live and eventually raise their families. I have served on national, statewide and local education and civic committes benefiting those around whom our work revolved. I grew up in the Quad Cities, earned my BA from the Drake University, MA from the Universioty of Iowa and post graduate degrees from Iowa State University. My family growing up consisted of my mother and sister, several cousins, aunts and uncles, and a caring group of teachers K-12. I look forward to contributing to solutions impacting the emerging needs of our public school through challenging times.

Please list below 3 key messages of your campaign. What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?

• Public schools in Ankeny have been the backbone driving population and economic growth. Families choose to move to and raise families in Ankeny because of the quality of what Ankeny Schools have to offer. We are poised to build on the success we have enabled student to achieve. Primarily we need to target student engagement in increasingly more authentic and meaningful ways outside of the traditional brick and mortar, 45 minute classroom setting and in courses that are equally accessible to all high school students with highly qualified instructors using state of the art equipment in their discipline.
• I want to join strategic planning necessary to accelerate Ankeny school innovation. Strategic planning involves: retaining and capitalizing on what local control we have to plan forward; engaging the 250+ families now choosing to export their students to online/nonpublic schools who historically would chose to enroll their children in Ankeny public schools; partner with business to tap knowledge and expertise in course development and internship opportunities; redevelop a 5-year strategic budget that anticipates legislation weakening our local control needed to enact the change we wish to implement. I wish to join the team lobbying at the state level to impact public policy regarding education legislation.
• The 3rd key message targets community engagement. This begins with assuring each child and staff member in every school feels safe, welcomed and encouraged. All the best learning occurs when students feel safe, cared for, and respected. Next, with much of our community involved in fine arts, athletic and activity events, it’s critical we update, modernize and provide state of the art facilities for our students. A very large percentage of our students engage in these co-curricular and extra-curricular experiences and the scope of impact is huge. Finally, it’s important that we partner with families that need supports so their children can achieve a lifetime of personal success.

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?

Key public policy passions included: school innovation, public-private partnetrships, school-community collaboration, school safety, and legislative lobbying.

Is there a book, essay, film, or something else you would recommend to someone who wants to understand your political philosophy?

Yes:

1. Fair Isn't Always Equal by Rick Wormeli
2. The Governance Core 2.0 (Corwin Press)
3. School Leaderhip That Works (Marzano)
4. Servant Leadership (Autrey)

5. The Framework for Teaching Evaluation (Danielson)

What characteristics or principles are most important for an elected official?

Important public servant characteristics I feel I bring to the Ankeny School Board include: being truthful and honest, engaging in the work in good faith, collaborating with the fullness of our community and as such, responive to the community I serve. I am knowledgable about the issues we face with solutions to move us forward. Principles of high expectations, accountability, fairness and real solutions to hit our targetd outcomes is my goal, and anchored in my principals.

What qualities do you possess that you believe would make you a successful officeholder?

Knoweldgeable about the issues we are facing and experienced with finding opportunities and overcoming barriors with practical solutions.

Collaboartive
Curious
Transparent and hard working

Highly interest in helping grow our public school and our community

What do you believe are the core responsibilities for someone elected to this office?

There are 4 statutory core responsibilities of being a board member, ech important and unique to the position of being a board member:

1. Strategic Direction and Policy Setting
2. Fiscal Oversight
3. Leadership and Accountabiliy
4. Engagement and Community Relations

Additioanl components connected to the above include:
- Facilities Management
- Personnel Management
- Compliance with Laws and Policies

- Serving on Committees:

What legacy would you like to leave?

It's always the stories an individual leaves behinds that people remember, and thus define a legacy. I hope what I leave behind in my stories is exemplied in kindness, humor, impatience to get things done, respectfulness to others, and a fierce loyalty to our community.

What was your very first job? How long did you have it?

My first job was as a teacher associate while I worked on my BA through Drake university. I held this job for 1.5 years until graduation.

What is the primary job of a school board member in your view?

See Core Responsibilities Above.

In addition, board members have to assure confidential student and staff matters, pending litigation, land acquisition matters are held in confidence until such time as decisions have been rendered. And even at this time, FERPA rights for families should be safe guarded always.

Who are your constituents?

My consituants are the citizens who have voted for me to be a board member on behalf of the students, their parents, our staff, and community we serve. However, many depend on the functions that we carry out. Certified and classified staff are directly impact by the worek that we do, and their voices are essential - the matter. Our communuty at large are impacted by the decisions we kae in that our ability to deliver on our promised student outcomes impacts their continued growth.

How would you support the diverse needs of your district’s students, faculty, staff, and community?

Each student deserves and environment within which to feel safe, respected, challenged and supported my multiple adults. Each student deserves the opportunity to explore their talents and interests. Each child confronts challemges and difficulties in school and out, and our responsability as a public school system is to assure they have access to effective resources in response.

Research on supporting all students collectivelly and each student individually is clear, and includes the following examples:

1. Teaching Practices involve adapting teaching methods and materials to be relevant and meaningful to students' diverse cultural backgrounds. This includes:

    - learning about students' cultures, languages, and experiences to inform instruction

    - using diverse examples and perspectives

2. A wide variety of teaching materials that involves:

    -  multicultural material with rich examples where students can see themselves and others in their learning

    -  encouraging critical thinking and indepth, respectful conversations that are developmenntally appropriate around student experiences 

3. Data-based decisionmaking that results in:

    -  the collection, evaluation and action taken based on collected social, emotional and learning data

- elevation of student voices heard at thh building and district level informing those paractices that need to be added, refined, or removed.

How will you build relationships with members of the broader community? Which groups, organizations, stakeholders will you specifically target?

The Ankeny Community School District is engaged in many conversations and collaborations with a host of different community groups, and incudes wide representation form the community on district committees involving, strategy, finance, policy review and formation, curriculum and instruction to name a few. In addition, the Superintendent engages in community conversation both in person and through social media. I believe in increasing the relationship building/trust building conversations that could occurring on a more regular and ongoing basis with staff, formal and informal. I feel that board members are an important conduit to pursue these conversations which then redound to more robust empirical data informing all aspects of the board's work.

What constitutes good teaching? How will you measure this? How will you support advanced teaching approaches?

Instruction that is based on a thorough knowledge of rigorous standards, where students understand their purpose for learning each day in each course, where instruction and student tasks are aligned to the standards, and where students and staff can evaluate progress similarly. "Good teaching" involves real-time use of data to inform the progress each student is making, providing opportunities for students who ar ready with extended learning challenges, and this that need more explicit instruction to receive that as well.

"Good teaching" requires excellent classroom management, personalized relationships with students, and regular and ongoing communication with parents. :Greate teaching" occures when teacher collaborate with their colleages and their instructional coaches. "Great teaching" occures when teachers engage in professional development targeted to their needs and seek out that learning through building and district professional learning, and through learning outside the district (ie through AEA's Colleges and Universities). n"Great teaching" requires regular feedback from their colleagues and building administration.

The measurement of student success is best captured by actual student performance on Ankeny's rigorous application of standards in real time in and aggregate over time. This as opposed to a statewide assessment that captures on performance on basic skills using subjective criteria with data coming back to district many months after the completion of the assessment.

In what areas would you like to expand curriculum? For example, do you see a need for advanced technical training or apprenticeships? What sort of innovative programming would you advance if given the opportunity?

We have an opportunity for generational change with curriculum through our proposed Innovation Hub. I've talked about this above. More generally, best practice tells use we need to:

1. reincorporate phonic-based reading instruction in our literacy classes while retaining our literature rich environment that already exists.
2. rethink our ability to add orchestra to our course offerings grades 4-12.
3. reestablish foreign language at the elementary level
4. continue to bolster supplemental curriculum materials that are rich, diverse, and engaging.
5. invest, in addition to core math and reading instruction, additional math and reading intensive assistance for students not yet proficient in our middle schools
6. apply those practices for students with academic special needs in a coordinated and systemwide way that we know closes the educational gaps
7. design and then implement supports for students with behavior goals that better provides for them to be successful in a general education setting.

What's important is to emphasize that those most closest to being responsible for structuring, implementing, and supporting curriculum and instruction should be driving the conversations for change. The further away we get from the local school district's ability to be responsible for student outcomes, the less applicable these conversations and decisions become, and thus less productive for students.

What strategies or plans would you advance to ensure the schools are properly funded?

In summary from prior responses:

1. clear vision for what our school district needs to be relevant for student moving forward;
2. clear understanding of state legislation and how it is impacting our local school's ability to make long-term financial planning decisions;
3. fully utilizing the power we have as a local school district to strategically plan for the implementation of our vision with a sustainable financial plan in support of that implementation.
4. continue to utlize our demographer to inform our 5 year financial plan;
6. engage is community conversations (wide - varied - ongoing) that helps inform our vision and bring our already unified community along with implementing our vision

6. pursue focused and persistent lobbying of legislators to better inform their emerging legislation and to provide empirical data on the impact of past recent legislation

What principles drive your policies for safety in schools?

No good learning occurs in schools where students and staff feel unsafe. Full stop. The essential principal that drives my thinking around school safety policies is that, for our students and staff, school is their workplace. Our students and staff deserve a workplace that is free from violence, harassment, bully, intimidation, prejudice and fear. To the contrary, students and staff deserve to work in an environmet that is safe, respectful, inclusive, and welcoming. Building leadership set the tone and are responsible for implmenting board policies and administartive proceedures that assure safety, and when there are safety breaches, there is immediate and significant follow though as per board policy (402.13 for staff) and (502.04, 502.13, 502.14, 503.01, 503.01R, and 503.09 for students) for example.

The Ankeny Community School District policies around safety are located in the 500 series section, with the opening statement in BP500.00 being: "The district strives to ensure each student enrolled in the district has the opportunity to obtain an education that aligns with board policy and that enables the student to develop a healthy social, intellectual, emotional, and physical self-concept." The board member's role then is to review, refine, introduce new, and then communicate all subsequent 500 series board policies that protect our students accordingly. For staff it is the same principle, where those policies are generally in the 400 series.

What existing district policies would you like to change, or what new policies would you like to implement?

I have been on the school board policy advisement team with parents, teachers, board members, and executive administration. There is a constant review and revising of policies that take place on a regular cycle and ongoing basis. Each policy up for review receives a thorough analysis before it moves to the board for recommendation from the committee. This process is necessary, in place, and still functioning well.

My concern is that our local school board is losing its ability to make policy decisions that are best made at the local, and not state level. For example, policies around what books we can place on our shelves belong at the local level. Iowa has had more resources pulled form school shelves than any other of our 50 states. While it is true that we occasionally have, prior to recent state legislation, book challenges brought by a community member, we had a robust reconsideration policy in place to address the challenge. My view as a former Ankeny administrator, former parent of two Ankeny Community School students, current Ankeny resident, and hopeful Ankeny school board member is that material selection should be made at the local level and evaluated at the local level. A second example reflects my dismay that the state legislature removes protections for some students from bullying and harassment that otherwise Ankeny had it it's board policy to protect. Again, these decisions are best made at the local level where school board members are subject to public scrutiny and vote.

Describe your ideal learning environment for students.

So much of the response to this question is embeded in the text of the answers above. For example, learning environments that promote:

  - safety

  - respect

  - high expectations

  - supports for growth

  - research-based teaching, learning, and assessment practices

I would add and highlight here the importance of developing and implementing our Innovative Hub where students can explore in much more depth their interest in highly technical fields with staff who have the experiences and backgound knowledge in thise fields, using the tools and technology used in industry.

How do you feel like your school district handled the coronavirus pandemic? What, if anything, would you do differently in the future?

The covid experience was a horrible challenge for everyone in the Ankeny community. It tested every part of our school system and all parts of our community. It brought out the best of who we are, and then the some of the harshest critics. What we learned made us better, stronger and more resilient. Leadership at the executive level in collaboration with the school board helped us navigate treacherous and uncharted waters - with an interim superintendent. Having said that, it was our board who made the difficult decisions to better assure the safety of our students and staff (and the household members of our students and staff). We transitioned through 4 or 5 "return-to-learn" phases that required an enormous amount of planning, coordination and communication. In retrospect, the Ankeny School District lead our community through this hopefully once-in-a-lifetime event with nearly unified votes, one voice, and professionalism. The impact was as clear a set of changing directions for our building leaders, our staff, our students and their parents.
Many have their own stories to tell. We have moved on from that experience. Our board membership has changed based on that experience. And we are looking forward and not backward.

What will you do to build a relationship with parents in the district?

The very nature of being an elected school board member at-large requires open, honest, respectful, probing, and transparent conversations with individual and small groups of community members. Moreover, it's critically important to expand the scope of those conversations with those that may have divergent viewpoints, articulating authentic hopes and concerns. To this end, I feel it is important to be involved in community activities and open to the exchange of ideas. Through social media and email, I feel that our community members deserve the respect of civil conversation and, when necessary, follow up.

What are your preferred strategies for faculty, staff, and administration recruitment?

Typically, our best recruitment activities focus on (in no particular order):

1, Staff relationships with colleagues outside of our district.
2. Staff who are adjunct professors for surrounding Colleges and Universities in teacher education programs.
3. Attending recruitment fairs at our Colleges and Universities.
4. Online postings
5. Leveraging our participation in professional organizations developing networks from which to recruit.
6. Growing our own teacher candidates with high school students who participate in our teacher academy.

Recruitment is only 1 aspect of building a highly effective staff. It’s is important to assure we:
a. Offer a competitive salary and benefits package,
b. Ensure a working environment that is professional, and staff development and growth oriented.
c. Create the reputation that our schools are safe, inclusive, visionary, and supportive.

d. Offer opportuities for advancement.

What are your views on financial transparency and government accountability?

Financial transparency

- Transparency Involves:
a. demonstrating to taxpayer money is being used responsibly and effectively.
b. allowing the community and Department of Education to hold school leaders accountable for their financial and resource management.
c. ensuring that resources are allocated to support student needs and improve educational outcomes.
d. increasing understanding about how funds are being used.

e. demonstrating the values and priorities of the district to the community.

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