By Brooke Schultz

DOVER — When she thinks about her interest in a career in teaching, Dr. Vilicia Cade describes her parents valuing education. It was something that led her to working as a counselor for troubled youth.

“I always felt like teachers weren’t understanding the kids, and so then, I started teaching, and then, I got it,” she said. “I understood the complexities of teaching. So I see education as a powerful tool to bring about transformation in people’s lives. That’s been my personal experience.”

Her career has led her back to Delaware — her second home, she noted — to serve as Capital School District’s next superintendent. Dr. Cade was officially appointed Wednesday, in a 4-0 vote, with school board member Sean Christiansen absent.

She’ll formally step into the role July 1.

“I think being an administrator gives you a further reach to impact more lives because I still see myself as a teacher,” she said. “Being a superintendent at this level, I believe you have the opportunity to help more people reach their goals and their dreams — whether it’s students in the classrooms, whether it’s working with teachers to access certain training that they need, whether it’s supporting a principal that’s working tirelessly in getting them additional resources, whether it’s looking at facilities and thinking futuristically about the needs of the community, whether it is collaborating with people in the community.”

A New York native, Dr. Cade most recently served as the chief academic officer/assistant superintendent for Sandusky City Schools in Ohio.

Her educational experiences include serving as a high school teacher, curriculum specialist and assistant principal of East New York High School of Transit Technology; and a K-8 principal and director of program development for the Brooklyn High Schools’ superintendent office within the New York City Department of Education.

She also had a tenure with Chicago Public Schools, where she served as a director of high school curriculum and standards-based instruction.

Additionally, she worked as an elementary school principal in Broadview, Illinois, a western suburb of Chicagoland.

Dr. Cade earned her doctorate of education in restructuring schools through interagency partnerships from New York University. She has been awarded three master’s degrees: a master of science in administration and supervision and a master of science in teaching reading, both from Long Island University, and a master of arts in African American studies from the State University of New York at Albany.

She obtained her undergraduate degree from SUNY at New Paltz.

She first came to Delaware in 2009, working for the College Board, helping principals create a college-readiness system.

“In that experience, I realized that my skill set and my interest in service was more so focused on working within the traditional setting of a district and being a part of the staff,” she said. “It’s a different relationship when you’re an outside organization coaching principals to create a college-readiness system … than to be a part of the district and working with the principal, working with teachers, working with everyone in an inclusive way.”

At the time, she was completing her doctorate degree at NYU and Delaware presented the opportunity to do the work she wanted and to be close to New York. That led her to the Christina School District, where she worked as the senior director of teaching and learning.

Through that, Delaware became a home. Her son matriculated through middle and high school here. Family and friends live here.

“Coming back to Delaware was important to me,” she said. “Living in Ohio was further away, and I think the pandemic is sobering, right? You realize being nine and 12 hours away from your family during a pandemic is a little unsettling.”

As she comes into Capital, she said her first-year plan has to do with “listening and learning and sharing and leading.”

“The first goal is to figure out what reentry looks like for us, to returning to some five days a week of learning for our students,” she said. “The second thing has to do with really listening and learning about this community and immersing myself in becoming a ‘Senator,’ so that I can also celebrate the pride that this community has. I don’t think that I have to rush. It’s my goal to be here for years to come.”

She identified William Henry Middle School — which was severely damaged in a tornado last summer and has been unoccupied since — as one of the challenges facing the district. Making sure the new interconnected middle schools, located at the former Dover High site on Pat Lynn Drive, are completed on time and on budget is another pressing issue, she said.

She also wants to continue the work started under former superintendent Dr. Dan Shelton and Dr. Sylvia Henderson, who has served as interim superintendent since last July.

“We need to review them to see now how we can integrate all the 21st-century things that we’ve learned from teaching during COVID into those existing plans,” she said. “That’s going to be a challenge. Change is always hard: trying to figure out our next step after COVID and what that means for education for our children, what that means for tools and training for our teachers and what that means for supporting and interacting with our parents and our community.”

Of course, in any discussion over challenges facing the district, COVID-19 looms large. Dr. Cade described coming into the district at a time when the pandemic has drastically shifted education for a year as a “capstone event” for her. She said her time working in high-need communities where, in some cases, schools had to close, as well as studying research from Hurricane Katrina in her current role, has been informative for “understanding some of the complexities of what we can anticipate in terms of the impact of COVID.”

“At the end of the day, what we have to understand is that many of our students and staff and parents have experienced tremendous trauma during this pandemic,” she said. “And we have to think about things holistically and think about the social-emotional well-being of our entire community, as we keep them safe and continue to identify new ways to educate kids and adults.”

The pandemic has helped show disparities, she said.

“But it’s also creating a lot of opportunities for how we can change and do things differently to leverage the tools that we have to ensure that our kids are able to compete internationally,” she said. “I think that I am prepared, I am resilient, I am innovative, and I care about people, first and foremost. And I have very high expectations.”