David Allen Schools (born December 11, 1964) is a bass player and founding member of American rock band Widespread Panic.

With his primary band, Widespread Panic, he plays a six-string Modulus Quantum 6 bass that affords him a wide range of sounds that are further enhanced by an envelope filter and octave pedal.

His dad bought him his first record when he was four years old, a 45 rpm of Deep Purple's cover of Neil Diamond's "Kentucky Woman," followed by Creedence Clearwater Revival and The Who.

At nine years old he proudly remembers purchasing his first two LPs: Elton John's Greatest Hits and Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy.

[3] Initially Schools wanted to play drums, but living in an apartment complex made this impossible and his formal music training began in second grade with limited piano lessons.

He eventually switched to bass, taking lessons from age 12 to 14 before joining two high school bands, Midnight Jam and Broken Cheri.

He quickly fell into the Athens music scene and as a freshman almost became the bass player for innovative art punk band The BBQ Killers.

Wanting to take the project further, Schools and Joseph enlisted an all star cast to create a full band including guitarist Eric McFadden (P-Funk), drummer Wally Ingram (Jackson Browne, Sheryl Crow, Tracy Chapman, David Lindley), and German keyboard phenom Danny Dziuk who was later replaced by Danny Louis (Gov’t Mule).

[12] Slang is an experimental project featuring Dave Schools and electronic musician/engineer/bass player Layng Martine III (best known for his work with Bill Laswell).

[14] Acetate is a power-pop garage-rock band consisting of old friends Dave Schools (bass/vocals), Kevin Sweeney of Hayride and Sunshine Fix (guitar/vocals), and Ben Mize of Counting Crows and Cracker (drums/vocals).