Melanie Brink, who has led Freeburg’s elementary school district through two years of controversy and upheaval, is leaving to become superintendent of Belle Valley School District 119 in Belleville next year.
The Belle Valley school board voted Tuesday night to hire Brink to replace current Superintendent R. Dane Gale, who wanted to retire last summer but agreed to serve one more year due to lack of a replacement.
“I am so thankful for the opportunity I had in Freeburg, but I truly look forward to this new opportunity that I have in front of me,” Brink said in a phone interview Wednesday.
“I look forward to working with the talented and dedicated staff at Belle Valley, the outstanding students they have and the wonderful community. I’m just really excited.”
Brink tried to resign as superintendent of Freeburg Community Consolidated School District 70 in August 2023, shortly before the start of a new school year, stating her desire to take another opportunity elsewhere.
Board members declined to accept her resignation by a 6-1 vote, and Brink later agreed to stay. She’s in her fourth year at Freeburg. Her contract ends after the 2025-26 school year.
Brink hadn’t resigned from the Freeburg post as of Wednesday morning, according to Mark Janssen, the district’s financial officer. She’s scheduled to be off work until early next year.
“I think it’s a little premature for the district to comment (on Belle Valley’s vote to hire Brink),” Janssen said. “We haven’t heard from her in regard to this.”
Brink declined to comment on the Freeburg district’s past, saying she’s focused on the future.
District issues have included staff resignations, school board infighting, a police investigation, requests for stalking no contact orders and heated debates among local residents.
On Wednesday, Gale said Belle Valley’s board members were aware of these issues, having conducted extensive research and done their “due diligence” to verify Brink’s qualifications. They voted to hire her as superintendent beginning with the 2025-26 school year.
“I have known Melanie Brink for at least 15 years, if not 20 years now,” Gale said. “... I actually tried to recruit her (as Bartelso superintendent). I know her abilities. I know what she’s done in her life, and I know the type of person she is. So I was a good character reference for her.”
District 119 operated Belle Valley North, an elementary school, and Belle Valley South, a middle school, for decades before encountering problems with mine subsidence and constructing a new campus at 2465 Amann Drive for all grades. They moved in 2012.
Gale worked as a researcher at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and a pilot and aviation instructor at Southwestern Illinois College in Belleville before his 34-year career in education.
In Belleville, Gale taught fifth grade at Jefferson Elementary School and math and science at West Junior High School and served as principal at Signal Hill Elementary School. He also served as Bartelso superintendent for six years before taking the Belle Valley job in 2017.
“I’m not flying actively, but I still have all of my pilot ratings up to date, and when I retire, my plan is to get back into aviation, either as an instructor or a corporate pilot,” Gale said.
District 70 includes Freeburg Elementary School and Freeburg Primary Center. Recent issues have included the following:
- Elementary school Principal Ryan Wittenauer resigned in March 2023, effective at the end of the school year, citing a “toxic environment” caused by “unfounded attacks, bullying, and professional accusations” by people who “terrorize our school community.”
- Around the same time, parent David Stein blamed School Board Member Jayson Baker in a Facebook post for “relentlessly badgering our school” and called for him to resign. Baker didn’t. In April 2023, Stein ran for school board and won.
- In 2023, Baker filed two requests for stalking no contact orders (similar to orders of protection) against Stein in St. Clair County Circuit Court. A judge denied one in March but granted another in August. Both men were allowed to continue attending board meetings.
- Over the winter of 2023-24, Freeburg police conducted an investigation of Brink after a parent filed a “grooming” complaint against her. The St. Clair County state’s attorney’s office determined that no crime had been committed. The police chief called the accusations “unfounded.”
- In February 2024, Brink called police to Freeburg Elementary School about an alleged disturbance involving Stein, who was reportedly upset about the way the grooming investigation was being handled. He was asked to leave the property.
- In August, six of the seven school board members voted to ask St. Clair County Regional Office of Education Superintendent Lori Costello to remove Baker from office. Costello later determined that Baker’s behavior hadn’t met state criteria for removal.
- In November, district officials obtained a emergency workplace protection restraining order from a judge, prohibiting Stein from attending school board meetings. They maintained that he had threatened to run over them with his vehicle.
- That evening, five school board members voted to ask Costello to remove Stein from office, alleging that he had acted “irrationally” and “aggressively” toward them and school administrators. Stein said he was just calling out corruption and mismanagement.
Editor's note: This story was originally published by the Belleville News-Democrat. Teri Maddox is a reporter for the Belleville News-Democrat, a news partner of St. Louis Public Radio.
