Burke one step closer to top Rhinelander school job

Port Washington High School Principal Eric Burke is one step closer to being offered the job of superintendent of the Rhinelander School District after interviews in the northern Wisconsin district Tuesday.

The Rhinelander School Board offered Burke, who was one of three finalists for the job, as well as one other candidate a second interview. The other candidate, Patrick Devine, superintendent of the Waconia, Minn., School District, declined the offer, leaving only Burke to meet again with the board on Tuesday, Feb. 4, Bruce Miles, president of Minnesota-based Big River Group, a consulting firm hired to conduct the superintendent search, said. 

The board, Miles said, intends to make a decision next week and could offer the job to Burke or decide to continue its search.

Burke said he has also applied for the Cedar Grove-Belgium School District superintendent job, and the board there was expected to select finalists Wednesday night. 

Saukville Elementary School Principal Chad Brakke, who plans to earn his superintendent certification this month, said last week he has also applied for the Cedar Grove-Belgium job. 

Burke, who during his two decades at the Port High has been a student, teacher, coach and administrator, earned his superintendent certification in 2015 and said that with the completion of the $45.6 million renovation and reconstruction of the high school, now may be the time to move on.

“I still love being here,” he said last week, “but with the referendum work finished, I thought now would be a good time to pursue my next goal.”

Of any administrator in the district, Burke has the deepest connections to the community. He graduated from Port High in 1986, and after earning an undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point in 1992, took a teaching job in Elkhart Lake. 

But at the urging of his high school wrestling coach and longtime Port High teacher Duffy Brelsford, Burke returned to the district to take an elementary and middle school  phy-ed teaching job and eventually a teaching position at the high school. 

In 2004, he left to become athletic director at Franklin High School, but after only a year he returned to Port High to become an assistant principal and athletic director. 

 In 2008, he was named principal of Lincoln Elementary School in Port Washington, then returned to Port High in 2011 as principal.

The Rhinelander School District is located in northern Wisconsin, and although it’s a long way from Port Washington, Burke said he is no stranger to the area. His family has long owned a cabin there.

The enrollment of the district, which has four elementary schools as well as a middle and high school, is about 2,400 students, slightly smaller than the Port-Saukville School District, which educates about 2,600 students.

Rhinelander’s current superintendent, Kelli Jacobi, is retiring on June 30. Her successor will begin work on July 1.