Port High grad, former teacher among two finalist for superintendent job

There are two finalists for the job of Port Washington-Saukville School superintendent, and one of them is no stranger to the district.

Joe Koch, deputy superintendent of the School District of Waukesha, who is a Port Washington High School graduate and former special education teacher at the school, was one of the finalists selected by the School Board after a lengthy meeting Wednesday, Board President Brenda Fritsch said Friday. 

The other finalist is David Watkins, chief of schools for St. Paul Public Schools in St. Paul, Minn.

The board, which met Wednesday in closed session, selected four finalists but two have withdrawn from consideration. They are Cassandra Schug, superintendent of the Watertown Unified School District, and Susan Savaglio-Jarvis, superintendent of the Kenosha Unified School District, who recently announced her retirement from that district.

Koch and Watkins are scheduled to be in the district on Monday, May 24, to tour schools and meet with administrators during the day and in the evening participate in a community forum open to the public in the high school gym. As of Friday, the community forum was scheduled to begin at 6 p.m.

Koch and Watkins were among six semifinalists chosen from 36 applicants by School Exec Connect, the consulting firm hired by the board.

“The candidates each had very different strengths, but yet each had something very special to offer,” Fritsch said. 

Koch grew up in Port Washington, where his parents, Mary and the late Fran Koch, were teachers at Port High.

He was a special education teacher at Port High from 2005 to 2010 and worked as an administrator in the Cedarburg School District before becoming deputy superintendent of the School District of Waukesha in 2014.

Watkins was an assistant principal in the  North Fond du Lac Public School District and a principal in the Waupun Area Public School District and Madison Metropolitan School District before becoming chief of schools for St. Paul Public Schools in 2019.