Chambana Sun

Rantoul City School District 137 issued the following announcement on Feb. 25.

Beginning next school year, Rantoul City Schools will begin a two-year transition in leadership roles at the district’s central office and junior high school.

The Rantoul City Schools (RCS) Board of Education wishes to thank our current superintendent of 9 years, Mrs. Michelle Ramage, for her continued outstanding service to our schools and community. Working with Mrs. Ramage, we are pleased to announce a multi-year transition plan due to her notice of retirement in December 2022. This plan will ensure stability for our students and staff, and places our district on a path toward continued success and growth. Michelle will serve as our superintendent until December 31, 2021. Our new superintendent will begin January 1, 2022. From Jan 1, 2022 through December 31, 2022, Michelle will serve as a Central Office Administrator to assist with the transition listed below.

Beginning on January 1, 2022, Dr. Scott Woods will serve as our new superintendent. Scott will continue in his current role as District Bilingual Director and Principal of JW Eater Junior High School for the 2020-2021 school year. For the fall semester of 2021, Scott will serve as Deputy Superintendent working with Superintendent Ramage, before assuming the full responsibilities of superintendent on January 1, 2022.

As part of our transition plan, for the 2020-2021 school year, current JW Eater Assistant Principal, Ms. Heather Jacobs, will assume an increased role and serve as Associate Principal of JW Eater Jr High. Beginning with the 2021-2022 school year, Ms. Jacobs will succeed Dr. Woods as the Principal of JW Eater.

Rantoul City School District 137 is a pre-kindergarten through eighth grade school district with an enrollment of more than 1,800 encompassing one PK-5 campus, three K-5 campuses, and one 6-8 campus in the community of Rantoul, Illinois located in northern Champaign county.

Mrs. Michelle Ramage

This is Michelle’s 31st year in education. She began her teaching career of 5 years at Danville High School as a special ed teacher. The next 11 years, Michelle served in a variety of administrative roles in Danville District 118. For 6 years she was an assistant principal at both middle schools and 2 years as assistant principal at Danville High School. Her last position for three years in Danville District 118 was the assistant special education director for the district. In 2005, Michelle became superintendent/principal of Thomasboro Grade School. In 2011 Michelle became the interim superintendent at RCS where she served for one and a half years as interim superintendent while also part time superintendent in Thomasboro. She fell in love with RCS and became the full time superintendent in 2013.

Michelle was born and raised in Danville into a family of educators. Her parents were both teachers in Danville and her grandmother was also a teacher. Michelle and her husband, Tom, live in rural Champaign. Tom is the president of Parkland College and their son, Colin is a commercial underwriter at Busey Bank where he works with his wife Megan.

Dr. Scott Woods

Dr. Woods began his career in education in the Rantoul community as a student-teacher at both RCS and Rantoul Township High School (RTHS), and his first year of teaching was at RTHS. Scott has taught and led for more than 20 years in education, with sixteen of those years working in school and district leadership roles. Since July of 2018, Scott has worked for RCS as District Bilingual Director and Principal of JW Eater Junior High School.

In addition to extensive successful school leadership experience, Dr. Woods brings a broad background of advocacy and research to our district. Scott completed his Doctorate in Education in 2017 at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Recently, Scott’s research was awarded by the American Education Research Association (AERA) as the middle grades dissertation of the year, and part of this research will be published in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Educational Administration. Additionally, Scott serves on the Board of Trustees for the Association for Middle Level Education (AMLE),the largest international organization devoted to middle grades students and schools, and he chairs the AMLE Advocacy Committee.

Born and raised in Moline, Illinois, Scott's parents worked at his high school as both teachers and guidance counselors. He and his wife, Rachel Caldwell, an RTHS graduate and daughter of a long-time RCS elementary school teacher, met at the University of Illinois and are the parents of two girls (11 and 7). His family has lived and worked in Champaign county for nearly ten years. Rachel is a school-based Speech-Language Pathologist working in multiple schools.

Ms. Heather Jacobs

Ms. Jacobs started her 19 years in education as a teacher at Kankakee Junior High School where she taught math and language arts for 7 years. Heather moved to Urbana and taught math for 7 years before taking the position of Dean of Students for three years at Urbana Middle School. Since 2018, Ms. Jacobs has served as an Assistant Principal at JW Eater Junior High School. Ms. Jacobs completed her Masters in Curriculum and Instruction at Olivet Nazarene University and her Masters in Education Policy and Organization at the University of Illinois.

Ms. Jacobs was born and raised in Kankakee, Illinois. She moved to Urbana in 2008 where she later met and married her husband, Scott Reeley. He is employed by the University of Illinois CITES department and is retired from the US Air National Guard. Heather and Scott have two children who who are both active in Scouts and various youth sports. Rounding out the household is their yellow lab, Ranger.

Original source can be found here.