Brookings School District Superintendent Klint Willert resigned his post effective June 2 at a special meeting of the school board Wednesday night. The board then unanimously accepted his resignation and hired a consulting firm to immediately begin the search for his replacement.

The district announced the abrupt resignation and a special meeting with an agenda and a news release late Tuesday afternoon.

Willert signed up to speak during the comments from the audience portion of the meeting Wednesday night and read a prepared letter of resignation which began “It is with apprehension that I submit my resignation as the Brookings School District Superintendent of Schools.”

“While this resignation is unconventional,” he continued, “it is what is deemed concurrent with current school board members goals for the District.”

Willert replaced Dr. Roger DeGroot as Superintendent in July of 2015. His letter of resignation details his work over the last eight years — noting specifically increased communications from his office with the community, the challenges of navigating the COVID-19 pandemic and the bond process to build on 2 schools that was approved overwhelmingly.

A clearly emotional Willert called his time in the job his life’s work and said he was “… very proud to have had both of my children graduate from the Brookings School District and know that much of their current success comes from the very sound education they received…”

Willert’s letter was met with a standing ovation from supporters at the meeting and two members of the community spoke and urged the board not to accept his resignation.

There was also community concern expressed about the school’s accreditation, which is currently “on probation” and which was linked to Willert’s resignation on a blog post.

After the meeting, School Board President Keli Books said that the process that ended with Willert’s resignation Wednesday night began before she learned of the accreditation issue via certified letter from the State Department of Education on March 10.

Books said the letter from the state was a surprise to her, but that the school district has the things done now that it needs to have done. She stressed that the board took the accreditation process seriously and that she believed all of the issues raised by the state board would be resolved by the end of March.

During the meeting, Willert also spoke to the accreditation process, saying the state board had initially raised 9 issues during the process. Five were resolved on the spot. Of the four remaining, one has been resolved, he wrote, one was due to a state system not being able to receive documentation and the other two would be resolved at the March 27 school board meeting.

Books also made a short statement about the accreditation process, saying the issues involved did not regard student achievement or teacher quality or anything of the like. She said she and the board took the issues seriously but that she was confident it would be resolved by the end of the month.

The board went into executive session during the middle of the meeting, after which attorney Rich Helsper gave a short statement.

Helsper said the board had entered into a ”release and settlement agreement” with Willert regarding his resignation and that agreement would not be public information until it was voted on at the next regular meeting. He also said the process did not start recently and that while he understood it was a difficult situation, he had instructed the board members not to speak about the situation publicly until they approved the settlement agreement. 

After the executive session the board accepted Willert’s resignation and unamimously moved to appoint Dakota Education Consulting to perform a search for a new superintendent.

That firm had already prepared information for the board members and its head, Tom Oster, who joined the meeting via phone, said if the board hired his firm they would post the job on Thursday.

After the meeting, Books stressed the need to move quickly to find a strong candidate before the position is open on June 2. Oster said he planned on having candidates for the board to interview by April 29.

The board will meet regularly on March 27.