School District of Neillsville 
Superintendent Search

The School District of Neillsville School Board is conducting a superintendent search. In December 2024, Superintendent John Gaier announced he  would retire at the end of the 2024-2025 School Year. The board plans to select a permanent superintendent by the end of March, 2025.

About the superintendent search process

The School District of Neillsville School Board has selected Hazard Young Attea Associates, (HYA), a national consulting firm, to: 

• Gather input from students, families, staff, and the community
• Recruit candidates
• Guide the search

To keep you informed, this webpage will serve as a source for all information related to the superintendent search. Please check back often for updates!

For the official release please click here.

Superintendent Candidate Finalists

The Board of Education of the School District of Neillsville is pleased to announce the selection of two finalists to interview for the position of District Administrator of the School District of Neillsville.  From a deep list of qualified candidates, the Board conducted initial interviews on Saturday, February 15, 2025 and narrowed the slate to two finalists.

The board has selected Dr. Andrew Grimm, current Superintendent of the School District of Winter and Corey Peterson, current Elementary Principal in the Melrose-Mindoro School District to participate in the final interview process and day in the district on March 3, 2025.

Read the Press Release for more information on the candidates.

A Day in the District-March 3, 2025

As part of the selection process the two finalists will participate in candidate forums with the School District of Neillsville’s families, staff, students and community members on March 3, 2025 in the PIT at Neillsville High School. The day in the district will provide an opportunity to meet both candidates and ask questions. All interested families, staff, students, and community members are invited to participate and provide feedback to the school board on each candidate through an online, confidential response form.

Leadership Profile Report

This report presents the findings of the Leadership Profile Assessment conducted by Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates (HYA) during the months of December, 2024 and January, 2025 for the new superintendent of the School District of Neillsville. The data contained herein was obtained from input the HYA consultants received when they met with individuals and groups in either interviews or focus group settings and from an online survey. The interviews, focus group meetings and survey were structured to gather input to assist the Board in determining the primary characteristics desired in the new superintendent. Additionally, the stakeholder interviews and focus groups collected information regarding the strengths of the organization and some of the challenges that it will be facing in the coming years. It should be emphasized that the data is not a scientific sampling, nor does it necessarily represent the majority opinion of each respective group.

Leadership Profile Report

Online survey

You’re invited to complete this anonymous survey which will be used to develop a profile of desired quality and characteristics in the next superintendent. It will guide recruitment and the development of interview questions.

The survey will be available from December 9th to January 2nd. 

THIS SURVEY IS NOW CLOSED--Thank you for your participation!

Focus Groups

Please attend the appropriate focus group listed below as your feedback is important.  Participants do not need to register, just show up and jump in. Some focus groups listed below are in person only, while others are  Zoom only. If you can’t attend a focus group or you would like to add additional comments from a scheduled focus group in which you attended, please email us your comments at the following email addresses: scottwinch@hyasearch.com