Meet Dr. Tom Schneider FLISA Executive Director

Dr. Tom Schneider, retired superintendent of Burr Ridge Community Consolidated School District 180 (Illinois), was selected as the Executive Director of the Federal Lands Impacted School Association (FLISA) in 2020.  As Executive Director, Dr. Schneider leads the FLISA organization representing over 200 eligible Federally impacted school districts across the country, serving approximately 900,000 students.Dr. Schneider is familiar with the complexities of Title VII of ESEA, and comfortable in any legislative office as a veteran of countless Hill visits.

Schneider served as Superintendent of Burr Ridge CCSD 180 for 16 years and as Superintendent of Willow Springs School District in Illinois for five years before that. He has a long history as an educator, having worked as a teacher and in school administration since 1989.

“Impact Aid is vital to our students’ success,” says Schneider. “It provides teachers and programs that I, nor any superintendent, would never want to eliminate due to a lack of funding. Working to ensure and expand Impact Aid funding means that all federally impacted students will not be deprived of these opportunities.”

Schneider worked closely with the previous FLISA Executive Director Tom Madden for several years before taking on the position of Executive Director.

FLISA is one of the NAFIS subgroups, representing school districts that have lost a portion of their local tax base because of federal ownership of property. These districts receive Impact Aid Section 7002 Federal Property. To be eligible, a school district must demonstrate that the federal government has acquired, since 1938, real property worth at least 10 percent of the assessed value of all real property in the district at the time of acquisition. The other NAFIS subgroups are the Military Impacted Schools Association (MISA), National Indian Impacted Schools Association (NIISA) and LO~ISA.

Schneider had been active on the NAFIS Board for over seventeen years, and had served as that organization’s President in 2021-2023 before stepping down in 2025. He also served as President of FLISA from 2014 to 2016.

The FLISA community looks forward to continuing to work with Tom as we strengthen and protect Impact Aid for all of our NAFIS and federally connected students.