Bob Ertl, the activities director at Lakeville North High School, is leaving his post just over a month after vowing to stay on despite two DWI arrests.
Ertl, who pleaded guilty in December to driving while intoxicated, submitted a request to leave his job, and the Lakeville school board accepted it during a meeting on Feb. 26.
Ertl is asking to return to teaching. It is unclear where in the district he would end up or what he would be teaching.
Lakeville Superintendent Lisa Snyder said Ertl, in an e-mail to the district, said he was seeking the switch in order to spend more time with his family and also to get back to the classroom.
She said the switch is not at the behest of the district, which agreed in January to let him continue as activities director at North, a job that pays more than $100,000 a year.
Despite that agreement, there was the possibility that Ertl would have lost his activities director job at the end of the school year because the district is reorganizing administrators as part of a projected $3.5 million budget shortfall.
The school board was to be presented with a preliminary plan for budget cuts, and a hearing on the cuts will be held on March 19, Snyder said.
Snyder said one of the proposals is to go from having two activities directors, one at each high school, to having just one.
