As an educator with over 40 years of experience, Dr. Rue is currently an Executive Superintendent for the Texas Association of School Administrators.  She is active as an interim superintendent and in providing executive services including superintendent searches and executive coaching for superintendents.  Dr. Rue is a TEA provider for school board member training.  She also serves North Texas school districts as a member of the ESC Region 11 Board of Directors. 

A former Professor of K-12 Educational Leadership at the University of North Texas, and in the Baylor University School of Education, she previously served as superintendent of Northwest ISD (from 2005 until her retirement in 2016) and Tuloso-Midway ISD, and as executive director in Katy ISD.

Rue has been active in leading and creating a transformational shift in education, with a focus on preparing future-ready students, encouraging innovation and creativity, and developing more meaningful assessment and accountability measures. She was a founding member of the Public Education Visioning Institute and served as co-chair of the Texas High Performance Schools Consortium.

Rue served as president of TASA (2015-16), the Urban Superintendents of America Association, the Fast Growth Schools Coalition, and the Texas Association of Suburban/Mid-Urban Schools. She also served as vice president for the Texas School Coalition.

 Karen Rue joined a select group of distinguished Texans receiving the Texas A&M University 2017 Golden Deeds Award, considered the most coveted award in the field of Texas education and the highest recognition for distinguished service to education in the state.

She was named a 2016 AASA Women in School Leadership Award finalist, the 2014 Region 11 Superintendent of the Year, selected to participate in Classroom Connectivity in Texas at the governor’s mansion and in the Connected Superintendents Summit at the White House, chosen as a finalist in the eSchool News Tech-Savvy Superintendent Awards program, and named one of the nation’s Top 50 Innovators in Education by the Center for Digital Education.

 Rue has a bachelor's degree from the University of Southwestern Louisiana, a master's from Lamar University, and a doctorate from Texas A&M University. All three degrees are in education.