Balderman is new Westmont District 201 superintendent

The Westmont District 201 School Board recently announced Westmont High School Principal Jack Baldermann will serve as the district’s new superintendent, effective July 1.

Baldermann was selected after a search process involving input from hundreds of members of the school district staff and Westmont community as well as a nationwide search.

“From the onset of the search, we as a school board were hopeful that the community would be a big part of the selection process,” School Board President Adina Hoover said in a news release. “The surveys and focus groups that so many community members and district staff participated in helped to guide us as a board as we selected candidates to interview from the nearly 50 candidates who expressed interest in the vacancy. The overall process was very rewarding and we are thankful that our community and staff were so involved.”

Baldermann is an 11-year veteran of District 201. He oversaw the recognition as a Blue Ribbon School symbolizing excellence in overall student achievement for a collaborative pre-K to 12th grade unit school district, according to the release.

Westmont High School has won the DuFour Award as the Best Professional Learning Community in the U.S. and has been named an exemplary school every year by the Illinois State Board of Education. Most recently, the school earned the highest scores for any Illinois high school on the University of Chicago’s 5 Essentials Survey.

During his tenure as principal, Baldermann was recognized as Illinois Principal of the Year in 2017 and was the first educational leader from Illinois to be a finalist for National Principal of the Year. In 2022, he won the Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Educational Leadership. Baldermann is the only educational leader in the state to win the Golden Apple Award and be selected as Illinois Principal of the Year.

Previously, Baldermann served as a district leader in principal and superintendent roles in various school districts across the Midwest. He holds a bachelor’s degree in both political science and English from the University of St. Francis as well as a master’s degree in English from Loyola University and a master’s degree in educational administration from St. Xavier University. Currently, he is completing a doctoral program at the University of Illinois in educational leadership.

“The students and people of CUSD 201 are sacred to me and I am most proud and grateful to serve as superintendent of our district,” Baldermann said in the release. “We will need all of us to pull together as we become one of the premier school districts in Illinois and the nation.”