WAUSAU – D.C. Everest Area School District announced in May the following administrative level new hires for the 2024-2025 school year.
Kelley Strike, D.C. Everest assistant superintendent of operations
Strike brings to the district more than 22 years of teaching and administrative experience. After completing a B.S. in family and consumer science education at the University of Wisconsin-Stout, Strike began her teaching career at Wisconsin Rapids Public Schools and worked to obtain an M.S. in education from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. She started as an instructor at Southern Door High School before becoming associate principal and alternative education coordinator for the Southern Door School District. She held multiple administrative positions at the Shawano School District and in July 2020 became the Tigerton School District superintendent, followed by a stint at the Merrill Area Public Schools as the director of business services.
Ted Aleckson, Rothschild Elementary School principal
An alumnus of the D.C. Everest School District (class of 2005), Aleckson will return to Rothschild Elementary — where he attended school from 1993 – 1999. In 2009, Aleckson began his career in the education field as a fourth-grade teacher at Eagle Creek Elementary, part of the Shakopee Public Schools District. In 2013, he transitioned to the Shakopee East Junior High as a seventh-grade social studies teacher and then advanced to dean of students at Faribault Middle School in 2018. He has served as assistant principal at Becker Middle School in Minnesota since 2019. Ted earned a B.A. with a social studies concentration from Gustavus Adolphus College and a Master’s in educational leadership from Saint Mary’s University.
Luke Stachovak, D.C. Everest Senior High School assistant principal
Stachovak returns to the D.C. Everest Area School District where he taught math, served as a math interventionist and helped found the project-based D.C. Everest Idea School over a span of 15 years (2008-2023). Most recently, he has served as associate principal at John Muir Middle School in Wausau. Stachovak has taught secondary math and played an integral role as a coach of soccer and baseball for more than 20 years on behalf of the Tomah Area School District (2000-2002), the Wausau School District (2002-2008) and then D.C. Everest. He received his B.S. in mathematics education from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point in 2000 and completed Master’s degrees in teacher leadership at Silver Lake College and Educational Leadership at Marian College.
Derek Micke, D.C. Everest Middle School assistant principal
In 2009, Micke completed his B.A. in history and education at Lawrence University and then pursued certification for early adolescence-adolescence cross categorical special education at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He subsequently completed a Master’s in education at Viterbo. His teaching career began at Arrowhead High School and then was followed in 2013 by a teaching position at South Johnston High School in Four Oaks, North Carolina. He relocated to Wisconsin in 2018 and taught at Mosinee High School. In 2021, Micke became a sixth- through eighth-grade special education teacher at Horace Mann Middle School in Wausau where he remained until becoming dean of students at the D.C. Everest Junior High in 2023.
