North Scott Superintendent Tim Dose dies unexpectedly

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By Sheena Dooley | Tuesday, July 1, 2008 9:34 PM CDT | () comments

North Scott Superintendent Tim Dose died this afternoon. He was 53. (CONTRIBUTED PHOTO)

Tim Dose, superintendent of the North Scott School District, died unexpectedly Tuesday, leaving the community he served and his colleagues stunned. He was 53.

Dose was taken to Genesis Medical Center, East Rusholme Street, Davenport, Tuesday afternoon after he stopped breathing during a dental procedure. He had gone to the dentist to have a wisdom tooth removed and was given anesthetic, which he didn’t wake up from, said Frank Wood, assistant principal at North Scott High School.

“Our educational community has lost a very fine leader and certainly our thoughts and prayers go out to Tim’s family and his friends and colleagues and to the entire North Scott community,” said Pleasant Valley School District Superintendent Jim Spelhaug, who worked closely with Dose on educational issues in the past five years. “He was a very fine asset for our educational and broader community.”

Dose led the more than 3,000-student district for the past seven years, and colleagues said he was known throughout Iowa among educators because he devoted his life to children. The North Scott board hired him in 2001, when he was serving as superintendent in Monticello, Iowa.

Rex Masterson, North Scott school board president, said the district will miss Dose and has no immediate plans for how it will move forward with replacing him.

“It’s fairly early to even be thinking about that,” Masterson said. “Any efforts we have will be directed toward the family to help them get through this. We will decide which way we need to go and how we should proceed at a later time. Our thoughts and efforts and prayers will be directed toward the family to help them get through this.”

Masterson credited Dose with helping lead the district through a tough financial period when the board pink-slipped teachers. Most recently, he served as a driving force in getting residents to approve a 10-year extension of the Physical Plant and Equipment Levy and 1-cent Local Option Sales Tax, both of which provide the North Scott district with millions of dollars each year for building projects and the upkeep of schools.

Dose arrived in the district at a time when the federal and state governments were calling for the increased accountability of schools in educating children. He guided North Scott through the implementation of No Child Left Behind, under which schools are judged by the state for the performance of their students on reading and math tests. Since the law took effect in 2002, the district made academic gains in the classroom, Masterson said.

“It’s going to be a challenge for the school district to overcome this loss,” Wood said. “Tim brought a more open dialogue. He was visible in the district and a regular in the schools. He worked hard with administrators to make certain that the kids and teachers were getting the resources and education they needed to be successful and raise test scores.”

Dose had aspired to lead a larger district at some point and was one of four finalists this spring for the superintendent position at Sioux City Community School District, Iowa’s fourth largest district with nearly 14,000 students. At the time, he said he was “flattered” that board members thought he was qualified enough to be a finalist.

“I know he was making a hard decision to look outside of Iowa in the future (for jobs),” said Julio Almanza, Davenport School District superintendent. “He had a lot of history with (Iowa’s education system). He is a person that I had come to respect. He knows the priorities of kids.

“Tim was a fair and honest person who had his priorities very straight. Not only was he a colleague, but he was a friend. It’s a great loss for North Scott and our community.”

Dose is survived by his wife, Sandy Dose, two daughters and a son.

Sheena Dooley can be contacted at (563) 383-2363 or sdooley@qctimes.com.