The West Bend School District in Wisconsin had to pay Don Kirkegaard $175,000 a year, plus $15,000 in moving expenses, to leave his plum post as South Dakota’s Secretary of Education in 2018 and come superintend their district just 17 miles from the Lake Michigan shore and 40 miles from downtown Milwaukee. West Bend also paid headhunting firm McPherson & Jacobson a surely pleasing sum of money to hold lots of meetings and recruit a candidate who would at least pause the churn that had cycled three men through the district’s top office in less than two years.
West Bend needs to call another headhunter. Kirkegaard submitted his resignation Monday and will leave the West Bend School District this summer:
He said he and his wife Lois are returning to the home they built in the Black Hills. “We did not sell our house in the Black Hills,” said Kirkegaard. “We kept it with the idea that we knew that’s where we would retire.”
…While Kirkegaard said he is “not ready to be done done yet …. the departure truly is a personal decision” [Judy Steffes, “West Bend School Superintendent to Submit Resignation at Monday Night Meeting,” Washington County Insider, 2020.02.03].
Kirkegaard may have temporary work back home. His last job is currently occupied by Dr. Ben Jones, who started as a temp but has stuck around to make really bad slides and not much else, but Kirkegaard’s pre-Secretary employer, the Meade School District in Sturgis, may want an interim super:
Former Meade 46-1 superintendent of schools Don Kirkegaard has offered his services as an interim superintendent of the district, following the release of current superintendent Jeff Simmons in January.
…Dennis Chowen, president of the Meade 46-1 Board of Education, confirmed Tuesday that Kirkegaard had contacted the board the day after a Jan. 13 meeting in which the board and Simmons announced a mutual agreement of his release from the remainder of his three-year contract.
“He (Kirkegaard) has certainly expressed interest, but the board, at this time, hasn’t officially made any statement one way or the other whether he’s going to be offered an interim position, or go in line with the rest of the applicants,” Chowen said [Jim Holland, “Former Meade 46-1 Superintendent Offers Services as Interim Super,” Rapid City Journal, updated 2020.02.05].
And of course, Kirkegaard can always go back to work with his old crony Tom Oster as a consultant helping schools recruit superintendent candidates from the establishment political machine.
There’s no sign West Bend wanted Kirkegaard gone; it sounds like he just up and wanted out:
Questioned whether the West Bend School Board made him an offer to stay. “That wasn’t an option,” said Kirkegaard. “I never gave them an opportunity to make an offer because that wasn’t an option.”
Still no word on whether a counteroffer was made. Calls have been placed to school board members including Paul Fischer who said he did not think a counteroffer had been made. Fischer was also unaware Kirkegaard had been in contact with his previous employer in the Meade School District.
Kirkegaard said he informed “individual West Bend School Board members the week before with the idea I was going to resign and submit a resignation tonight, Monday, February 3″ [Steffes, 2020.02.03].
In October, Kirkegaard reported to the West Bend School Board that district enrollment in the community of 32,000 is down 8%—600 students—since 2006 and will likely drop 16% from 2019 to 2028. The town population isn’t shrinking, but the youth population is: white folks (West Bend was 97.3% white in 2000 and is 94.6% white today) just aren’t having as many babies, so since 2000, the percentage of West Bend’s population under age 18 has shrunk from 25.5% to 22.9%, and the median age in West Bend has risen from 35.3 to 38.7.
I know Dennis Chowen, a good man. His wife Roxie Chowen is a fabulous and highly skilled singer and all around professional musician.