Toledo isn’t where Chris Rust grew up or spent the bulk of his 35-year career in education, but after nearly eight years as superintendent of the Toledo School District, Toledo is where he wants to stay when he retires at the end of the school year.
“I felt like I’ve been invited to join the community,” Rust said earlier this month in an interview with The Chronicle, where he reflected on his career.
Rust grew up in Washougal and began his career in special education, working in a day treatment program for kids with emotional and behavioral disorders in Washington Education Service District 112 in the Vancouver area before moving over to Battle Ground Public Schools. He transitioned into administration in Battle Ground, where he worked as assistant principal until the district had a double levy failure in 2005, prompting him to accept a middle school principal position in Mattawa. After a couple years there, he briefly went to work in Portland at a private therapeutic school for kids with psychiatric diagnoses before returning to Eastern Washington to be the principal of Warden High School.
Rust left Warden to accept the Toledo superintendent position in July 2015, stepping into the role then-superintendent Sharon Bower vacated when she retired after 10 years in the district.
For Rust, each step up during his career was a similar experience of thinking he knew what the new position would be like, only to be proven wrong once he got into the new role.
Becoming superintendent of the Toledo School District was no different he said.
“I thought I had a pretty good idea of what was going to be expected, but boy, that first year, you just drink out of a firehose and you just learn and learn and then learn some more. And that’s one of the things that I really love about this profession: We’re professional learners,” Rust said.
In his time at the Toledo School District, Rust has worked with district’s staff, school board and the Toledo community to solve problems ranging from low student achievement in the elementary school to a water line issue at the old high school that greatly increased the city’s water contamination risk.
One of the proudest achievements for the Toledo School District and the Toledo community during Rust’s time as superintendent was the construction of the new high school, which officially opened last year.
About $2 million in savings from that construction project will cover four years of payments on the $7 million bond Toledo voters approved in 2018.
“I'm really proud that we took the savings and we're making the bond payments for the taxpayers for three or four years, so community members won't pay a nickel for high school until probably 2026,” Rust said.
The dedication the Toledo School Board and Toledo district staff have for serving children in the community, and the community’s commitment to supporting the school district, are what made the successes of the last eight years possible, Rust said.
There is still plenty of work Rust is leaving unfinished, including completion of the stadium at the high school and finding a way to continue funding the mental health staff the district hired with state Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds.
A $3.5 million capital levy proposal to fund construction of a complete stadium at the high school’s existing track failed on the February ballot and the district has yet to announce plans for running the levy again or securing outside funding for the project.
“I can’t tell you how sad it makes me to not be able to finish that stadium ... I’m hoping we’ll be able to,” Rust said.
Mental health issues were prominent among students when they returned to school after COVID-19-related restrictions were lifted, Rust said, which prompted the district to use its ESSER funds to “beef up” its mental health staff by adding counselors to the middle and elementary schools so every school in the district had a counselor, not just the high school.
Levy funds will support those new staff members through the end of this year, Rust said, “but we can’t sustain it.”
Growth will likely pose a challenge to the Toledo School District in the near future, Rust said, as the district predicts there will be another 77 to 100 kids in the district by 2027.
“It wouldn’t be difficult at all if they were all going to be in high school, but they’re predicting they’re going to be K-5 and our elementary school is already over capacity,” he said.
Those will be challenges for Toledo’s next superintendent to tackle, however.
Starting next year, Rust’s priorities will be serving out the rest of his term on the board of directors for Lewis County Seniors, working on his physical fitness so he can possibly go back to serving as a volunteer firefighter, and seeing what else life in Toledo has in store for him.
“When the tiger wakes up in the morning, it doesn’t worry about what it’s going to eat, right? Breakfast will be served … I have found the same to be true for me that when I have left somewhere. The universe provides the next thing,” Rust said.
