Stone Bank hires new interim chief, a former superintendent from the Silver Lake School District
Stone Bank School has hired Jon Schleusner as its interim superintendent for the 2023-24 school year.
After serving as the district administrator of the Silver Lake School District since 2014, Schleusner was planning to retire at the end of the 2022-23 school year.
But when a temporary superintendent position opened at Stone Bank, Schleusner said the job fit well with his plans to ease into retirement. The interim position is a 40% part-time contract, or two days per week, for one year.
Since the beginning of 2023, four superintendents in the Lake Country area have announced their intentions to leave their positions. This high turnover rate isn't limited to northwestern Waukesha County, but is also being seen statewide.
School boards, including Stone Bank's, have been looking for replacements.
“I'm kind of a rarity in that I've been in Silver Lake for nine years, but I would say that the job has become increasingly complex and it’s across the board whether it’s school finances, whether it's academic requirements, whether it's federal and state reporting requirements,” Schleusner said.
The K-8 Silver Lake district is about 23 miles west of Kenosha and consists of just one school, Riverview Elementary. It has an enrollment of about 500 students.
Schleusner said the similarities between the Silver Lake and Stone Bank school districts will be beneficial to his transition. For example, Schleusner said both districts are K-8 districts that feed into union high schools, are similar in size (Stone Bank's enrollment is about 300) and have been high academic performing districts over the past few years.
Schleusner said great things are happening in both districts, and he is excited to continue being a part of that.
“I've had a wonderful experience in Silver Lake,” Schleusner said. “I have greatly enjoyed working with our staff, students, families, community here, but I'm also looking forward to supporting the staff at Stone Bank with initiatives that they've got going. And I’m really just looking forward to being a part of the school community up there.”
Stone Bank School Board President Jeff Smith said the board will continue to search for a more permanent candidate.
"We will continue our search as we had been doing before with the option of a shared superintendent," Smith said in an email. "However, we believe we have found an outstanding candidate in Jon and may consider him for longer term employment."
Smith said the board members voted unanimously for Schleusner; his contract started July 1.
Schleusner earned his bachelor's degree in business management and a master's in education from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.
His first job in education was as a business manager at Randall Consolidated School in Burlington. “While I was (at Randall), I really developed an interest in the teaching and the educational side of school,” Schleusner said.
He later returned to school and received principal and district administrative licenses through Aurora University in Illinois. Since then, he served as an elementary principal, central office administrator and district administrator.
He recently completed the necessary coursework for his superintendent license, also at Aurora University.
“I’m really excited to be at Stone Bank now,” Schleusner said. “I'm really looking forward to getting a chance to work with folks and start getting ready for the 23-24 school year.”
Contact Skyler Chun at schun@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @skylerchun_.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Silver Lake superintendent transitions to Stone Bank
