La Salle-Peru High superintendent reflects on career ahead of retirement, ‘Theres’s no place like home’

“He’s not a stereotypical superintendent.”

That is the phrase La Salle-Peru High School students have used to describe Steven Wrobleski, who has been superintendent of L-P since 2011, said he would retire at the end of the 2025-2026 school year.

Students highlighted his active participation in student events and enthusiasm for their passions.

“He enjoyed every minute of students and their passions,” former L-P student Max Wertz said. “Even if it was like small little things he would post about it on social media, about how proud he was about the students and their successes. That was always a special moment – that felt great.”

Wertz said Wrobleski wasn’t a place students went when they got in trouble – like some superintendents. He was in the community.

“He really cared,” Wertz said. “And that definitely did affect everyone in a positive way.”

Wrobleski said he’s learned that students are looking for adults that are going to support them, encourage them and make them feel comfortable enough to be themselves.

“That’s always been my driving mission,” he said. “I want kids to know who I am. I want them to know that I love them and I’m here to support them.”

However, there was a time when Wrobleski becoming an educator was not even a consideration.

“I was initially starting as a pre-veterinary medicine major,” he said. “Since junior high school I worked for a local farmer outside of Jonesville … and I thought it would be fun to be kind of fun to be a vet.”

Then Wrobleski said he took a chemistry course and thought – maybe not so much.

He changed his major to history and received his degree in secondary education. Wrobleski has been superintendent of La Salle-Peru High School since 2011 – he has been with the district since 2005, when he was hired as the school’s curriculum director.

“My uncle has been a real influence in my life,” he said. “My dad passed away after I graduated [La Salle-Peru High School] and so my uncle stepped in as a real father figure for me and he was a former history teacher.”

Wrobleski followed in his uncle’s footsteps by becoming a high school history teacher after graduating from Illinois Valley Community College and then Northern Illinois University, where he obtained his bachelor’s in arts in history.

After teaching for a few years in the Chicagoland area, Wrobleski said he was encouraged by some mentors to go back to school. So, he pursued a master’s in Educational Leadership and superintendent’s license at the University of Illinois.

“I was a teacher, I became a department chair, and then became an assistant principal and then principal,” he said. “And this is all within about 12 years up in DuPage County … And then I had the opportunity to come home.”

L-P Social Science Division Chair Troy Woods said when Wrobleski started at L-P people said, “What does he think we are a suburban school, doesn’t he know we are a working class community?” and he would laugh because he knew Wrobleski since they were children growing up in Oglesby.

“He knew what we could become,” Woods said. “And oh what we have become under his leadership. Rob Clydesdale and myself used to talk about if L-P would ever build a new school. Both of us would say not until after we retire and our kids have graduated. Then Steve took the helm and wow! Did that all change.”

Wrobleski was hired in 2005 as the school’s curriculum director, six years later he was hired as the superintendent. He said one of the first aspects he spoke about with the school board as superintendent was the need to develop a strategic plan.

“But, we also knew that the facilities needed a lot of work,” he said. “Our science labs were just dilapidated and that’s no one’s fault, just over time and very few parts of the building were air conditioned.”

He said at the time you would look at the outside of the building and think “oh god it’s beautiful” but when you walk inside it was like stepping back in time. So, that was priority No. 1 — develop a plan to upgrade the facilities.

And they did. They upgraded the sports complex, then it was the passing of the referendum and the renovation of the main building, then the Area Career Center, and then the expansion of the sports complex and the football stadium, the updating of the Pope Auto Mech building, and then the Dolan Building.

Most recently, the school approved the capital improvement fundraising plan for a new agriculture building by the 2025-26 school year if the funding comes through.

“We have a state-of-the-art top notch educational facility that everyone in this community can be proud to send their children to,” Woods said. “Superintendents and school boards from across the state visit L-P to get ideas about what they can do with their building. All three of my children have gotten the opportunity to see it happen before they graduated here, and I am grateful for that, and the entire community should be.”

Aside from structural improvements, Wrobleski worked with the board, faculty and staff to implement policies and programs to ensure L-P was working from the inside out to become the best it could be.

Wrobleski said he is proud of the policies they have been able to put in place over the years to address bullying and the programs that support those policies; like the Renaissance Program.

“It is the backbone of our school,” he said. “It’s about recognizing good behavior, good attendance, good grades. It celebrates stuff, as well. So, I think the time we take to just call people out for just being good people. I think that builds culture.”

L-P also has provided Chromebooks to every student, Wrobleski said this has transformed students’ ability to connect to the internet.

“The most important thing it has created is equity,” he said. “So, it has ensured that it doesn’t matter how wealthy your family is or how poor your family is – you’re going to have the same.”

L-P instructor Kristen Adams, who has worked with Wrobleski, a faculty member and as the union president, said his willingness to collaborate, listen and work through school challenges with stakeholders has made him an asset to the district.

“As superintendent he has continued to support teachers by encouraging and supporting them as they pursue further education, internships, and by creating leadership opportunities within the building,” she said.

Throughout the structural improvements and policy implementations, Wrobleski maintained his interpersonal connections with students implementing a school lunch program, where he has lunch with students during the week.

“I don’t want kids to feel intimidated by the position,” he said. “I try to get to as many events as I can, as well and I send kids a lot of letters …I’ll type them a letter and then I give them a copy of their article and their picture from the paper.”

Jackson Sellett, a senior at L-P, said the school is always at the forefront of Wrobleski’s mind and he is always trying to further improve the school.

“He’s always so friendly to everybody that he has every single encounter with,” he said. “He’s just a great person.”

Wrobleski said he hopes to rekindle the agriculture program and refocus the district’s goals before his retirement.

“That’s one of the things I want to have as kind of a lasting legacy. Is for us to be back here and to have roots,” he said about the Ag program. “But, as a staff, we’re working really hard on our goals to reduce chronic absenteeism and increase our graduation rate.”

After retirement, Wrobleski will transition into a full-time assistant professor at the university level – educating future superintendents.

Wrobleski said as an L-P alum to describe his time as Superintendent – “There’s no place like home.”