Superintendent Schoch to retire at end of school year

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By ROD STETZER
rod.stetzer@lee.net
Saturday, November 15, 2008 8:05 AM CST

Mike Schoch doesn’t know what he will do after he retires as superintendent of the Chippewa Falls School District at the end of this school year.

“I have nothing in the works,” Schoch said on Friday, although teaching again is a possibility.

The board of education is scheduled to take up his retirement plans at its meeting on Thursday, Nov. 20.

“He has excellent leadership qualities. He’s brought some wonderful new initiatives to the district,” Roberta Rasmus, school board president, said Friday.

Roger Thompson, co-president of the Chippewa Falls Federation of Teachers, was surprised when told of Schoch’s decision to retire.

“I have always had a strong, professional relationship with him,” Thompson said.

He said with Schoch, there was a level of trust between the teacher federation and the school district that doesn’t always exist in other districts.

Schoch, a 1968 Chi-Hi graduate, will be 59 when he retires June 30. His wife, Dana, has been retired for two years.

“We’ve been planning this together,” he said.

Schoch is completing his 33rd year in education. He said he wanted to divide up his career into thirds, and he’s done that between being a teacher, principal and a superintendent.

He succeeded Larry Annett as Chippewa Falls superintendent in the 2004-05 school year after a five-year stint in Fall Creek. Before that he was a junior-senior high principal from July 1989 to September 1999 for the Cameron School District, and had earlier taught social studies in Cameron as well as Kohler, Wis.

“I am lured by the challenge of moving into a larger district,” Schoch said in 2004.

His biggest challenge while in Chippewa Falls was something he couldn’t prepare for or predict. A tragic accident Oct. 16, 2005 killed five people aboard a motorcoach chartered by the high school marching band that was returning from state competition at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.

Nothing was more difficult during his educational career than guiding the district following that accident, he said.

“It will affect me as long as I live,” he said of the crash that killed band co-director Doug Greenhalgh and four others.

One project that Schoch was heavily involved in was the refurbishing of Dorais Field, needed to raise nearly $2 million in 2007 to complete.

Schoch said some of his accomplishments in Chippewa Falls include a new accounting system, a student management system called Infinite Campus, a strategic plan for the district and curriculum work.

“I’ve gotten a lot of support. ... There are a lot of good people here who have the kids’ best interests,” he said.

Thompson said Schoch was able to walk the fine line of being responsible to the district’s students and being fiscally responsible to taxpayers.

Schoch was a tough negotiator but always personable, Thompson said.

“To be honest, I’m going to miss him.”

Rasmus said she’s sad that Schoch will be leaving the district, but she wished him the best.

“He is a very thoughtful person. He weighs all of the information he has very carefully, and he really is just an exceptional leader through good and difficult times,” she said.

Reach Rod Stetzer at rod.stetzer@lee.net.