Tooele County School District will lose two top administrators at the end of this school year.
Superintendent Terry Linares and Assistant Superintendent Ken Luke have both announced they will retire.
“It is sad for our district to lose both of them,” said President Maresa Manzione of Tooele County School Board. “They have done a good job for the district.”
Linares has been with the district for 39 years.
“I’ve thought about it and it’s just time,” Linares said.
Linares started working for Tooele County schools in 1974 as a school secretary in Wendover. In 1979 she and her family moved to Grantsville where she continued to work as a school secretary, first at Grantsville Elementary School and later at Grantsville Junior High School.
While working at Grantsville Junior High School, Linares completed a bachelor’s degree in history from Utah State University’s Tooele campus.
After completing her bachelor’s degree, she commuted after school for two and a half years to Logan to complete her teaching certification from USU.
Linares started teaching English and history at Grantsville Junior High School in 1989 and then at Grantsville High School for five years.
She then served as assistant principal at GHS for three years and then as principal for six years at the school.
In 2004, Linares was selected as the secondary education director for the school district and in 2007 she was appointed as assistant superintendent.
In May 2008 the school board announced its selection of Linares to succeed Mike Johnsen as superintendent after Johnsen announced his retirement.
Ken Luke has been with the Tooele County School District for 31 years.
Luke grew up in Tooele. He graduated from Brigham Young University in 1980 and returned to Tooele and worked with his father in the insurance business for two years before he landed a job teaching at Stockton Elementary in 1982. He has since taught at Stockton, Harris, and Northlake Elementary schools.
Luke served for seven years as principal at East Elementary and opened Rose Springs Elementary, working there as principal for a year and a half before being selected as the elementary education director for the district.
Luke was promoted to assistant superintendent by Linares in 2008.
The school board will conduct a statewide search and possibly a nationwide search for Linares’ replacement, according to Manzione.
The new superintendent will then hire an assistant superintendent to replace Luke, according to Manzione.