Brakke accepts district job offer

Chad Brakke signed a contract Tuesday night to become the Cedar Grove-Belgium School District superintendent starting July 1.

The School Board is slated to approve the contract at its March meeting.

Brakke has been principal of Saukville Elementary for the past decade and has been in education his entire career.

He has been a middle school and elementary school guidance counselor with the Park Falls School District and assistant principal at Rice Lake High School.

Brakke has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, a master’s in school counseling from Plymouth State University in New Hampshire and a master’s in leadership and administration from UW-Superior. He completed the superintendent licensing program at Concordia University Wisconsin.

Brakke wrestled in college and coached Division III wrestling for three years as well as high school baseball, football and wrestling.

He said his research into the Cedar Grove-Belgium School District made him all the more excited to join it.

“I know a lot of people from the Cedar Grove-Belgium School District, and just the sheer pride they have in the school was the first thing,” he said.

“They have a lot of good things going on. They’re financially in good shape and are doing a lot of the same work with professional learning communities that we are, which is a foundation of my educational philosophy.”

Brakke is the assessment coordinator for the Port Washington-Saukville School District, and he likes that Cedar Grove-Belgium uses data and connects its district and building goals to teacher goals.

The priorities of a people-centered leader who works with others and seeks input from the community and the staff, as well as everything being focused on students, resonated with Brakke.

“Their values were kind of in line with my values,” he said.

Brakke, who lives in Port, said he plans to move to the district next school year, after his youngest son graduates from Port High this June.

The Cedar Grove-Belgium superintendent position opened after Jeanne Courneene retired in early fall due to family reasons.

Courneene, a former principal of the district’s middle school, was superintendent for five years. She spent 21 years in the district.

Claire Martin, a career educator who served as superintendent of the Chilton School District for nine years before retiring, is Cedar Grove-Belgium’s interim superintendent. She was not a candidate for the job.

The school board chose McPherson and Jacobson of Omaha, Neb., to lead the superintendent search. The district is paying the firm about $10,900.

The firm led the board in a process to identify the qualities it wants in its next leader and led similar sessions with staff, students and selected community members and leaders.

Three finalists had been identified from a pool of 26 applicants. Howards Grove High School Principal Scott Fritz and Deputy Director of the School District of Waukesha Joseph Koch, Ph.D., were the other two.