Tom DeJardin
Tom has more than 30 years of professional communications and administrative experience in the public and private sectors. His strengths include small school development and management, public relations, media relations, fundraising, communications and training, marketing, and project/special events management.
Tom was a co-developer of the Community Schoolhouse alternative high school, which opened as Oregon’s first startup charter school in September of 2000. Tom served as executive director of the successful school for four years before joining Mt. Scott Learning Center in the fall of 2004. He has also served as the volunteer Executive Director of the International Schoolhouse non-profit education organization.
Early in his career, Tom was a reporter in the New York City office of Interlink, an international press service. He later became Employee Communications Manager for Nordstrom, Inc., the United States’ largest fashion specialty retailer. From 1989 through 1991, he served as a Communications Consultant for William M. Mercer, Inc., the world’s largest employee benefits and human resources consulting firm. From 1992 through early 2000, Tom was the Communications Coordinator for Salem-Keizer Public Schools, the second largest school district in Oregon. His responsibilities there included internal and external communications for the district’s 33,000 students and 4,000 employees.
Tom is a graduate of Oregon State University. He and his wife, Jenny, have been married 34 years and have two sons.