Katie Schwartz is Excited for Upcoming School Year as New Superintendent

“I don’t have a vision of rewriting the path that the district is on. We’re on a really good path, and my goal is to continue working in that direction,” said new Horicon School District Superintendent Katie Schwartz.
Since starting her new role on July 1, Schwartz has been busy engaging with the community and preparing for the upcoming 2025-2026 school year.
Before her promotion, Schwartz served as the Director of Special Education and Student Learning for the district, a position she accepted in 2018.
Her career in education goes back much farther, however, to 2002, when she started as an at-risk teacher in a self-contained classroom in the Oshkosh Area School District. She later transitioned to teaching in all content areas at the middle school level. Then, before she transitioned to a curriculum support specialist within the district in 2007, she served as a middle school science teacher for sixth through eighth-grade students, as well.
“What we did is help to rewrite curriculum documents, and we were charged with integrating standard space learning across the Oshkosh Area School District,” said Schwartz, describing her role as a curriculum support specialist that she held for six years. “My focus was on science, physical education, and [family] consumer sciences, and that role really helped to guide my understanding of curriculum development.”

Also in 2007, Schwartz earned her Master’s Degree in Education for Curriculum and Development from National-Louis University.
In 2010, Schwartz returned to the Horicon area, taking a job with the Beaver Dam Unified School District as an interventionist for the elementary. Due to some staffing changes and a late resignation, she moved to teaching fifth grade at Jefferson Elementary in Beaver Dam, and then, due to more staffing changes, returned to being a middle school science teacher, which is the role she left before accepting the position in Horicon.
“The way I was kind of reintroduced to Horicon, I was working on the citizens advisory committee, and that was the group that was informing the board’s decision on whether or not to go to referendum to build this current campus,” Schwartz said. “It was at that time that I got to know Mr. (Rich) Appel, and I got reacquainted with Mrs. (Lisa) Sawyer, who was still working in Beaver Dam at the same time as me.”
Schwartz has been content with her 23 years in education and did not have a “lifelong goal of becoming a district administrator,” saying rather, “it arose with the situation.”
“Through my leadership work and working alongside Mr. Appel, it became something that I could really envision and see myself doing,” said Schwartz. “And so, I’m really grateful that I had the opportunity to kind of come into the role and be learning about it as I was doing my work.” “And I’m really thankful for the support of the board throughout that process, too. It was something that I saw becoming a leadership opportunity for me, and I’m grateful I was able to grow into the role,” she added.
Being able to grow into the role and work alongside Appel has allowed Schwartz to feel very positive about her transition to District Administrator and has left her with few worries.
“I think every district administrator has concerns and worries about state and local budgeting and the revenue sources that come in our way,” Schwartz stated. “I think one of my biggest continued concerns is that of staffing and the availability of professional staff to take on those roles. That’s not a major worry for me; that’s just part of the job.”
Other goals Schwartz would like to continue to work on are operational stability and academic achievement.
Overall, Schwartz said, “I’m really excited about the opportunity to continue leading. We have done some incredible work over the past seven years since I’ve been here, and before then, a lot of the incredible work was started too, but I’m really excited about the opportunity that I have to keep us moving forward in the work that we’ve been doing.”
Schwartz will also be continuing to serve as the Director of Student Learning. “Through that role, I work very closely with the school administrators, each of the principals, to make sure that we’re leveraging all of our title programs and also kind of making sure that we continue on the path of teaching and learning in the direction that we were going.”
A new addition was made to take over the other part of her past role this summer. Elissa Retkowski was hired as the new Director of Pupil Services.
Over the past seven years under the leadership of Appel, Schwartz has learned countless things from him that she plans to carry with her as she takes over.
“The two of us have a lot of similar visions and a lot of similar values, I would say,” Schwartz said. “I’ve always valued relationships in everything that we do, and I’ve seen that at work through the work that he has done, so that has only solidified the value and the importance that I put on relationships.”
While the relationships with students and staff are important, so too is the relationship with the community.
“I think the Horicon community is really strong. Mayor (Josh) Maas has also helped with that,” acknowledged Schwartz. “There are a lot of really positive things going on in the community, and I value the relationship that the district has with the greater community and the role that we play.”
“I see the school district as the hub of the community,” she continued. “This is where we’re engaging hundreds, if not thousands, of people on a regular, daily basis, and I find a lot of value in that. I’ve learned from Rich the value of the district’s commitment in terms of making sure that we’re offering the best resources we can to the community, and he has done an incredible job of putting us on the map and making sure that we are a destination. Our sudden increase in enrollment after the launch of the new building was tremendous, and the amount of services that we continue to provide for the community at large, I think, is really important, too.”
Some of those offerings include the summer food service program, led by District Food Service Director Kim Waech; opportunities with the Horicon Recreation Department and Dodge County YMCA; services provided by the community health worker, Leah Girten, and Marshfield Medical Center; and opportunities with the PTO.
“I have a real commitment to the city and the community as a whole,” Schwartz said. “I plan to continue a lot of the community engagement practices that we’ve been working on that Mr. Appel started.” She has shared that she will be continuing to host community coffee days, joining Marsh Talk discussions, and participating in the Marsh Area Chamber of Commerce.
‘I’ve been around in the community and I will continue to be,” confirmed Schwartz. “I’m just excited to be out and about this summer and meeting and greeting people and making sure that they know that I’m here and that if there’s anything anyone wants to talk about, I want to make sure that they come in and chat with me.”