Southern Door Alumnus Tapped for Interim Superintendent Post

Tony Klaubauf.

The search for an interim superintendent after a resignation this spring led the Southern Door County School Board to select a 1976 Southern Door graduate for the role.

Tony Klaubauf – who served for 11 years as the Denmark School District’s superintendent and retired from that post in 2018 – will fill the role until the district begins a deeper search with more lead time during this school year.

Prior to his Denmark post, Klaubauf served for six years as the superintendent in Mishicot, where he had also served as an elementary principal and curriculum coordinator. Prior to that, he taught in districts including Stockbridge, Hillsboro and Waupun.

Klaubauf, who grew up on a Southern Door County farm, earned his undergraduate degree from UW-Green Bay, master’s degree from UW-Oshkosh, educational leadership certification from Marian College, and superintendent’s licensure from UW-Milwaukee.

During his career, Klaubauf has helped to organize school/community/parent partnerships and was instrumental in the Door-Kewaunee Insurance Cooperative, saving local school districts millions of dollars, Southern Door officials reported. After retirement, he served as co-executive director for the Association for Equity in Funding, a group that advocates for equitable funding for public-school students across Wisconsin.

“I had settled on the retirement life, but the opportunity to help the Southern Door School District to continue to excel in academic achievement and student growth was enough to get me excited again,” Klaubauf said in a statement. “I read this summer that if a person wants to stay young, stay around young people. Since all the employees and students will be younger than me, this shouldn’t be a problem.”

This isn’t the first time he has been hired as an interim superintendent after he retired from Denmark: Klaubauf also served as Pulaski’s interim superintendent during the 2019-20 school year.

He and his wife, Janet, have two sons, Collin and Ben, who are both students at UW-Madison.

Southern Door School Board president Penny Price said in a statement that she and fellow board members are excited to have Klaubauf join the district.