Parks to retire as Marathon administrator
By Kevin O 'Brien
After 42 years in public education - including 17 as superintendent of the Marathon School District - Rick Parks will be retiring at the end of this school year.
School board members | reluctantly accepted Parks’ retirement notice at their monthly meeting on Dec. 11, allowing his last day on the job to be June 30,2025.
“I think it’s time,” Ricks said, expressing his gratitude to the board and the | district as a whole for what he called a “wonderful” experience in the district. Before his 17 years as administrator, he spent seven years as a high school teacher and coach in the district.
Now that the district has recently passed another operational referendum to ensure its financial stability for the next several years, Parks said he’s confident about handing his leadership role onto someone else.
Parks said it’s a good time for he and the district to move onto “the next chapter,” which will give his successor an opportunity to grow into the role before another referendum may be needed in the future.
All of the board members thanked Parks for his service.
Board member Ted Knoeck said he appreciated Parks for helping him learn the ropes as a new board member years ago. He also praised Parks for all the work he did in getting multiple référendums passed during his tenure as superintendent.
“We have neighboring districts who struggle to do that, especially with building référendums,” he said. “That was amazing.”
Parks said he was just one of many who helped get those référendums passed, noting that it was the community’s continued support for the district that ultimately led those initiatives to succeed. Following the meeting, Parks said the board will soon start the process of finding a
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new superintendent, most likely by approving a contract with a talent searching firm. A special meeting was held Monday morning to consider competing proposals from search firms in closed session.
In his retirement letter, Parks said he he feels “a deep sense of honor and pride to have been part of such a spirited and committed team” at the district.
“While I may not miss some of the daily ups and downs or the quantity of communications that come with the role, I will certainly miss the people — the heart of our great district,” he wrote. “You are all truly remarkable, and I encourage you to continue to strive for greatness.”
Other business
■ The board took no action on a trio of mid-year open enrollment requests for students outside the district wanting to attend classes in first, third and sixth grades. Based on open enrollment limits set by the board about a year ago, first grade was one of only three grades with spots available for the 2024-2025 school year.
Principal Max Wienke said first grade currently has one less student than last year (38), sixth grade is down two (56) and third grade added one in-district student (46).
Board member Lia Klumpyan noted that district parents have consistently said they wanted the board to keep open enrollment caps low to prevent overcrowding in classrooms.
“I personally would like to leave it as it is,” she said.
Other board members agreed to hold off on approving any new open enrollment requests and wait until next month’s meeting, when they will set new limits for the 2025-2026 school year.
■ The board tabled its discussion on approving the 2025-2026 school calendar after questions were raised about possibly adding days off in the middle of the year and adding in-service days for teachers earlier in the school year. High school principal Dave Beranek said the proposed calendar was kept mostly the same as this year’s, with 175 student contact days, 11 in-service days for staff only and four holidays.
Beranek said one wrinkle with next year’s calendar is the solo ensemble concert the district is hosting on March 27, 2026, which falls within the district’s usual spring break. As a result, spring break has tentatively been pushed back a week to March 30 through April 3, leading into Easter weekend.
Klumpyan said she would like to see a three-day weekend included in January or February, just to break up those two months.
“It is a long stretch, for teachers as well as students,” she said.
Beranek noted that adding a day off for students would require the district to add a school day somewhere else, possibly at the end of the school year in June.
Principal Wienke said “extending the school year in any way would be unpopular” among the staff, who would also like to see an in-service day earlier in the school year. This year, he noted that staff will not get to meet together as a team until January.
■ As follow-up to a board discussion in November, Parks said he will be discussing potential updates to the district’s crowdfunding policy with a representative from Neola, a consulting firm specializing in school policies. Parks said he will also be talking to staff members about the need to inform the district whenever an outside group offers to help raise money for school activities.
■ Knoeck brought up the need to talk about the district’s policy of not allowing hunting in the school forest after a few hunters recently entered the property.
“If we don’t allow hunting, we need to properly post it,” he said.
■ The board approved hiring of Colby Ellenbecker as a high school math teacher starting in the second semester. Parks said Ellenbecker is currently serving as an intern in the district.
■ Boy Scout Leo Narloch told the board that he recently completed his Eagle Scout project at the school forest, which involved the installation of a backpack rack with about 40 hooks for students to use in the park shelter. Leo said the planning process was the hardest part of the project, and that asking people for money wasn’t as difficult as he thought it would be.
■ The board rescheduled its next meeting from Jan. 6 to Monday, Jan. 20, at 5 p.m. at the elementary school.
■ Parks said the district has received nearly $3,000 in grant money from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services to purchase of a pair of defibrillators for the school’s outdoor facilities.
■ Principal Wienke told the board that U.S. News and World Report has ranked Marathon Venture Academy in the top third of Wisconsin’s 160 charter schools and the top third of 1,600 middle schools.
