School Board, Administrators Honor Retiring PCEP Park Principal

Plymouth-Canton Educational Park Principal Bill Zolkowski will trade in books for an Ann Arbor beer garden this year.

Zolkowski, who served as Park principal for three years, is retiring after this year.

School board members and administrators honored Zolkowski during a Tuesday Board of Education meeting at in Plymouth.

Erin MacGregor, the district's director of secondary education, said Tuesday that Zolkowski will be remembered as "a change agent," bringing together , and staff and treating the 6,200-student campus as one park, instead of three separate schools.

His next act? Opening and maintaining a beer garden in Ann Arbor as an addition to Mark's Carts, an outdoor food vending area in the city.

But he isn't ready to pack up just yet.

"I still have a lot of energy," he said. "There's still a lot of work to do."

On his own legacy, Zolkowski said leaders generally are judged by how their decisions look 3-5 years later, but said he felt he and his administrative team had done "good work."

His position will not be filled, with the district instead opting for promoting the associate principals at each high school campus — Carrie Lawler from Canton, Nancy Laws from Salem and Cheri Steckel from Plymouth — to full-fledged principal positions while MacGregor will assume many of Zolkowski's duties managing the campus. A Dean of students also will be added toe ach building.

The board voted in April to adopt the new leadership structure.

The change, Zolkowski said, shows confidence in the leadership of the existing personnel at the campus.