Superintendents’ Marriage Is in a Class of Its Own

After calling home to say it would be another late night at work, Gwen Gross slipped away from her job as the Ojai schools superintendent to attend a party she didn’t want her husband to know about.

She was secretly going to celebrate the passage of her district’s tough school bond vote. Not a very salacious rendezvous, but Jerry Gross would be hurt if he found out. After all, he is the superintendent in Thousand Oaks, and his district lost its bond attempt.

Gwen didn’t want to rub it in.

So goes the delicate balance between Ventura County’s education power couple.

“Power crazy couple is more like it,” said Gwen, who leaves their Westlake home at 6 a.m. to commute to Ojai. On school board nights, they are lucky to see each other before 10. Between them, the pair oversees nearly 25,000 students while running two school districts.

Imagine the pillow talk.

“Ours is always very compatible, sharing thoughts and advice on educational issues,” Jerry said.

“Many couples don’t know the intimacies of their spouse’s work,” Gwen said. “For us, it’s a real benefit having another superintendent at home. We understand what each other is going through. Our districts may be different, but the challenges are the same.”

And they do more than just talk shop.

“Any topic is fair game the first 15 or 30 minutes, but after that we discuss school only by agreement,” Jerry said. “You got to have a break.”

He golfs. She gardens.

But before long, the focus is back on education. It’s what defined their relationship.

*

Gwen and Jerry met at an education conference in New York 17 years ago. As the host city’s superintendent of special education, he headed the weeklong event. She was an elementary principal visiting from Colorado.

“I knew Jerry’s name through articles he had written; he was sort of a famous guy in special education circles,” Gwen said, noting that his picture appeared in the conference program. “And he was cute, too.”

By chance, a common friend introduced them. Four months later they were married.

“It was quick,” Gwen said. “But he was 40 years old, and I was 34. We weren’t kids.”

There was an instant spark. Both were born and raised in the Midwest. They were cheerleaders at Big 10 schools, she at the University of Wisconsin, he at Michigan State. They joked about their German backgrounds and the discovery that they each had a crazy aunt named Mildred.

“I thought, ‘Wow, here’s another Midwestern guy who shares the same values as I do,’ ” Gwen said. “And we had the same passion for and devotion to special education. That was definitely part of the attraction.”

They each had been married before and had children. She was raising a 4-year-old girl and he had two boys, 5 and 11.

The kids were not a turnoff.

“We started talking about our families immediately. It was exciting to meet someone in a similar circumstance,” Jerry said. “I had committed myself to never marrying again, but this was definitely someone who could change my mind. She was alive, positive and vivacious. And beautiful.”

*

Gwen was thinking instant family.

“Him already having two kids was a plus,” Gwen said. “I just had one daughter, and I always wanted a big family.”

But Jerry’s youngest boy, John, had West syndrome, a rare disease that arrests development at the age it occurs. Little John suffered massive seizures as an infant and, although growing physically, would always remain the cognitive equivalent of a 3-month-old.

“Jerry told me about his son within the first 15 minutes of meeting him,” Gwen said. “It didn’t take me long to realize that Jerry is a very strong person who handles things well. He is a confidence builder. He is also sensitive, caring and compassionate.”

Gwen met Jerry’s other son, Jerry Jr., when he invited her to his Brooklyn Heights brownstone for dinner.

“I like to cook and went to the best meat market,” Jerry said.

“He made prime rib, with a baked potato and the whole bit,” Gwen remembered. “I was impressed.”

“That was a fun night,” he said, recalling the hours they spent talking at the kitchen table. “I think we watched the sun come up the next day.”

After the conference, Gwen went back to her principal post in Colorado and Jerry soon began visiting.

“He wasn’t geographically desirable,” Gwen said.

But at a dinner party during one visit, one of Gwen’s colleagues remarked that he should start looking for her replacement.

“I don’t know what impression we made, but people assumed we would be getting married,” Jerry said.

A few months later, they did, when he left New York to take a job in California and she followed. He ended up heading special education in Long Beach and she became principal of an elementary school in Palos Verdes.

*

In California, they created a nontraditional “Brady Bunch” in which Jerry and Gwen’s children became part of an extended family that included their new siblings, stepparents and biological ones, too.

“Our former spouses are very much a part of our lives,” Gwen said. “We all get along great, take trips and spend holidays together, which is fortunate for the kids.”

At work, Jerry and Gwen were educators whose own family unit gave them credibility when dealing with the challenges their students faced at a time of shifting family dynamics. The Grosses were on the cutting edge.

“We brought an empathy to parents who had broken or combined families,” Jerry said. “We saw so many, and we understood them.”

But when it came to his role as special education director, Jerry did not put his disabled son on the resume.

“I had to be careful with that. John certainly made me more sensitive, but not a crusader,” Jerry said. “I also didn’t want to belittle the needs of other parents of handicapped children with an ‘I know what you’re going through’ attitude.”

His experience with John, who is in a group home under 24-hour care, was not the reason Jerry decided to make a career of special education. He had been in the field more than a decade before his son was born.

“Pretty ironic, isn’t it?” Jerry said. “I didn’t need a personal experience to let me know how tough it is.”

Now 22, John’s status has not changed. The other kids are grown, too. And the couple are glad they didn’t have any more kids together.

“We were too old and busy with our careers,” said Gwen, now 51. Jerry is 58.

The empty nest lets them focus on their role as education leaders, without having to worry about things like cooking anymore.

*

“This is dinner,” Jerry said, opening a kitchen cupboard filled with cereal boxes. “Who wants to eat gravy and potatoes at 10 at night after a board meeting? Besides, we love cereal.”

His favorite is corn flakes, not a reflection on his personality, asserted Gwen, who prefers Cheerios.

“He has a great sense of humor,” she said. “It’s a laugh a minute living with this guy.”

It’s been a few years since they both landed superintendent posts in Ventura County, he in 1993 and she in 1996.

But sharing the same title--and last name--can be confusing.

Staff members differentiate the two with the monikers “Dr. Jerry” and “Dr. Gwen.” In Ojai, there is Dr. Gross, the physician, whom Gwen is also mistaken for.

When it comes to ideology--education and otherwise--the two do have separate identities. Early on, they had differences regarding special education strategies. And they still like to hash out the pros and cons of policy.

“I wouldn’t want to think that everything Jerry says, I would say. We are very much independent people who enjoy wrestling over our opinions,” Gwen said. “We usually don’t disagree on the big issues, except for the time I got really upset with him when he voted for Mondale.”

“Yeah,” Jerry admitted. “I think she threw a glass of orange juice at me for that one. Her family had been Republican for a hundred years, and it was like, ‘How dare you?’ ”

Jerry explained that he helped raise funds for Walter Mondale’s Senate campaign in Minnesota before the politician became the 1984 Democratic presidential nominee.

Despite their differences, they don’t compete. They share documents, swap information and look out for things that would benefit the other’s district.

Jerry likes to call it a right brain, left brain relationship.

“She’s more creative, and I’m into figures,” he said.

Budgets and personnel are his thing, while she’s good with curriculum and staff development. They tap into each other’s talents. They also support each other through controversy and defeat, such as when Gwen’s district won and Jerry’s lost school bond elections last November.

“That was a big one. It was a very hard, sad day. It absolutely helps to have someone to go home to and commiserate over the issues,” Jerry said. “And it was nice that she spared me from knowing about her party.”

What an educator will do for love.

“I never thought I’d marry another teacher; it’d be too much of the same,” Gwen said. “But Jerry is wonderful. Sometimes sameness is peacefulness.”