The catastrophic downfall of revered superintendent Ian Roberts

Dressed in a three-piece suit, hairline laid protractor-straight, wearing his signature Nike Air Force Ones — the blue pair to coordinate with Roosevelt High School’s colors — Ian Roberts’ graduation day ensemble matched the principal’s introduction of him as the “sharpest dressing” superintendent around.

And Roberts’ speech mirrored the principal’s other descriptor that day, the same phrase teachers and students and employees who knew him well would often use to categorize the man in charge of Iowa’s largest school district: the “most radically empathic leader.”

“Radical Empathy” — the idea that connection and common understanding can be reached despite difference or vast disagreement — was Roberts’ defining value, a moral he wore like a nametag as he moved throughout the district.

Ris