‘A lifelong learner’: Klimkowicz reflects on 28 years with board of Illinois’ largest high school district

On the board of Illinois’ largest high school district, Anna Klimkowicz’s 28-year tenure has included everything from the internet’s impact on classroom learning to the Columbine tragedy’s influence on school security.

Along the way she’s had a front-row seat for some of American education’s major decisions, including transgender students’ access to locker rooms and how to provide instruction amid a highly infectious pandemic.

Klimkowicz considers those two issues the most challenging during her time in Palatine-Schaumburg High School District 211. She believes the ultimate lesson of both of those emotionally charged matters is the value of mutual respect.

“I think respecting people is important,” Klimkowicz said. “The push over the years is that every student has one adult they trust.”

Klimkowicz will leave the board Thursday, having decided not to seek an eighth term. Her reasoning — that there should be another seat for someone with children in the schools — takes her full circle to why she ran the first time.

In comparing education in 1997 to 2025, the Schaumburg resident’s opinion is informed not only by her decades on the board but also her prior service to the PTA in Schaumburg Township Elementary District 54 and two years of teaching.

Topping the differences are today’s use of technology and somewhat smaller class sizes than in the past. She believes education has generally improved over time, including its greater emphasis on students’ mental health.

But if there’s anything she feels may have been lost — in an era of texts, emojis and the emergence of graphic novels — it’s an emphasis on the mastery of proper English.

“I think we need to get back to that,” she said.

In the last of her seven terms, Klimkowicz served as board president. And that’s why, among the six superintendents she worked with, there was none she collaborated with more on meeting agendas and issues than the soon-to-retire Lisa Small.

“Lisa has such a passion for this district and respect for her staff,” Klimkowicz said. “She was knowledgeable, met with community members and worked on the entrepreneurship program. She had the leadership and ability to listen.”

Klimkowicz credits Small’s leadership with helping the district through the unprecedented upheaval of the pandemic.

She will be succeeded by Judith Campbell from Kansas City, Kansas.

Klimkowicz considers the recent superintendent search the most difficult of her tenure because the district attracted so many excellent candidates, which she credits to the district’s shining reputation. And that reputation, she says, reflects the passion of her board colleagues over three decades.

“I think we have quite an eclectic group of board members,” Klimkowicz said.

Though that has led to disagreements, some of them heated, she said it has contributed to the strength of the district and its administrative leadership.

Bucking the stereotype that those associated with school boards — particularly members endorsed by teachers unions — are Democrats, Klimkowicz is a Republican who unsuccessfully ran for state representative in the 56th District’s 2006 GOP primary.

That’s why she says the agreements and disagreements she’s had with fellow board members of both parties over the years are by definition nonpartisan.

She recalls the almost adversarial grilling she received from the union as a candidate back in 1997. She believes the endorsements she later received were based on observations of her decisions and her thought process. But she said she never felt indebted to the union for the campaign materials it produced and distributed on her behalf.

In fact, she added, Schaumburg Township Democrats declined to distribute the union’s material because of her Republican credentials.

While Klimkowicz is leaving the board, she is not yet retiring from her professional jobs as an addictions counselor for SHARE and working with people on the verge of homelessness through Northwest Compass. Those positions have come about through education and certification attained during her time on the District 211 board.

“Am I always growing and learning? Yes,” Klimkowicz said. “I believe in being a lifelong learner.”