After 34 years as an administrator and teacher in Brookfield-Lyons Elementary School District 103, Assistant Superintendent James Rick is calling it quits. Well, mostly.
The 55-year-old Rick, who two years ago announced he’d be taking advantage of the district’s early retirement program, spent his last day on the job in District 103 on June 29.
Superintendent Michael Warner said that Rick’s services will likely be retained next year on a consulting basis.
“Jim was my key, right-hand man,” said Warner, who just completed his first year as District 103’s superintendent. “I came to rely on him on a regular basis.
“We hope to get him back to help on a consulting basis. He’s so well-liked and respected, there are a lot of different ways he can continue to help us.”
Throughout the years, Rick has been a band director, principal and assistant superintendent in the district. In the past several years, he’s been the one administrative constant in a district that has endured battles between its former superintendent and school board members, wholesale turnover on its Board of Education and financial woes that were finally straightened out in 2004 with the passage of a tax referendum.
Warner will not fill the assistant superintendent position. Instead, the board last week voted to hire Candace Drury as the district’s new business manager. She’ll be paid $85,000 per year.
Drury has years of experience as a business manager in unit school districts in both Michigan and Wisconsin. Her first day of work at District 103 was Monday, July 2. She was most recently business manager for the Maple Dale-Indian Hill Unit School District in Glendale, Wis.
Her husband, Richard Drury, was recently hired as superintendent of Wheaton-Warrenville Unit School District 200.
-Bob Uphues