Colman-Egan Superintendent Tracey Olson plans to retire at the end of this school year, after serving in that position for five years.
The notification was made public at the school board meeting last week. Olson has been in her position at Colman-Egan since the fall of 2014.
“I am retiring at the end of this year so I resigned early to allow the school board to advertise early,” she said.
The Colman-Egan School Board accepted Olson’s resignation and met a week ago to start the process in finding her replacement. The board voted 4-1 to hire Dakota Educational Consulting for $4,000 to conduct a search for Olson’s replacement. The company will advertise, recruit, help with the interview process and assist the board with contract negotiations.
“I think the recruiting piece is important to us,” said Kirsten Taggart, school board member who made the motion to use Dakota Educational Consulting.
The only other South Dakota-based choice was Associated School Boards of South Dakota, which the board said doesn’t have a recruiting component.
Board President Mary Beth Zwart said the board would like to open up the job to begin receiving applications in October and have a new superintendent named by late November. Olson will finish this school year, and the contract with the new person will start July 1.
Olson, who grew up in McLaughlin and started her teaching career there in elementary grades and special education, moved to Parker in 1997 where she was elementary principal, followed by PreK-12 principal and eventually superintendent and elementary principal combined. She left in 2010 and worked as elementary principal in Tracy, Minn., until moving to Colman-Egan.
This year, the Colman-Egan school is starting its second strategic plan since she has been superintendent. “My goal is to work with staff to continue the momentum and to continue working on our school goal of ‘Every Student, Every Day, Whatever it Takes,’” she said.
“It has been a positive journey and bittersweet to end my career as an administrator here,” she said. “I have really enjoyed working here and want to thank the staff, the school board and the community for their support.”
She and her husband, Wade, plan to sell their Colman-area acreage and move to Lake Madison. They have two sons, a daughter-in-law and two grandchildren.
