Superintendent finalists could visit Monday

Details are being finalized this week for as many as three superintendent candidates to visit the Cedar Grove-Belgium School District on Monday.

“We are trying to set up an interview with another candidate or two yet, but we are working toward Monday as the day in the district,” Board President Chad Hoopman said Tuesday night.

The day in the district has finalists meeting with different school groups throughout the day and with the community in the evening.

Finalists were expected to be named early this month when the board was presented with 19 candidates found by the Arlington, Heights, Ill.-based search firm Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates.

The board narrowed the field to six, but the seven-member board then determined none of the candidates matched the profile the district developed, and the search essentially started over.

“The board remains committed and optimistic to secure a superintendent that aligns to the position’s profile that was created with the help of our staff and our community,” Hoopman said at the time.

HYA reposted the position as “open until filled,” he said.

“We will review the applicants on a case-by-case basis as the resumes come in,” Hoopman said. “The intent would be to schedule an interview with any applicant who might be a match to the profile.”

The district has received seven applications since, Hoopman said.

HYA is still helping with the search, but now the board sees every application turned in. The firm was hired in January for $15,500, and Hoopman said it will work with the district for that price until a candidate is found.

The board initiated a search for a new superintendent after Chad Brakke announced he was leaving the district at the end of the school year.

Brakke wasn’t planning to leave, but his wife received a promotion in September 2022 that requires her to work from her company’s office in a suburb of Minneapolis. Spending the work week in Minnesota and weekends in southeast Wisconsin became too much, Brakke said.

Brakke accepted a job as superintendent of the Baldwin-Woodville School District, a 30-minute drive from his wife’s office.