Whether it was where he intended to end up or not, Superintendent Dirk Halupnik may have been meant to be in education.
“I always kind of joked that I was destined or doomed. My dad was a high school teacher and coach, and then a principal, and then a superintendent, and it feels like almost everybody in my family, on both sides, had something to do with education, so it was one of those things that was just kind of in our blood,” said Halupnik.
Halupnik, the current superintendent of Southeast Polk, had his letter of retirement accepted at the Southeast Polk Board of Education’s meeting on November 6, 2025. After 11 years as SEP’s superintendent, Halupnik’s retirement will officially go into effect on June 30, 2026.
Before these 11 years, Halupnik spent 24 years in education. He started out as a science teacher, drawn to this position due to a couple of his high school teachers.
“I had two fantastic high school teachers that I really looked up to, and so I took all the courses that they taught, and then that kept spurring that interest,” said Halupnik.
He began teaching in Dike, Iowa. He taught there for one year before Dike merged with New Hartford to become Dike-New Hartford Community School District. He spent two more years there.
“Then I jumped over to Cedar Falls High School where I taught AP biology, microbiology, anatomy, and physiology, and coached football, track, and then baseball for a couple of years,” said Halupnik.
After his time in Cedar Falls, Halupnik made his way to Linn-Mar, where he was in high school administration for five years before making his way to deputy superintendent for seven years. Following that, Halupnik came to Southeast Polk where he has spent 11 years as superintendent.
With teaching, and being a superintendent, Halupnik’s passion was always human interaction. Halupnik loved to work with people to tackle challenges and accomplish great things. He enjoyed watching people succeed, celebrating that success, and seeing the success that followed all of their hard work. One example of this was when the middle school (6/7 building) opened, and Halupnik was given the opportunity to greet all of the students as they entered this brand new building that took a large team and continuous hard work to create.
“The first day that the middle school opened and the buses rolled up, and the kids came out of there, I had goosebumps,” said Halupnik. “You can kind of expand that to the first night at the stadium, or the first game at the softball diamond. Seeing kids enjoying using those facilities, I think that was awesome. You know, I’m really proud of a lot of the hard work of a lot of people.”
Other things that Halupnik finds pride in are all of the academic feats that SEP has accomplished. Beyond the opening of new buildings or facilities, or working together, he gains a sense of pride when there are crowns of achievements placed on SEP’s head. These include being named as a Project Lead The Way District of Distinction, National Model PLC District, and Altoona Elementary being awarded as a Blue Ribbon School.
A few weeks ago, Halupnik and the SEP school board went to the Iowa School Board Convention. When they introduced themselves as Southeast Polk at a table with other school board teams, their reactions read to Halupnik as “whoa, we’re in the presence of greatness.”
The majority of Halupnik’s pride within the district comes not only from where he put in effort, but from where he collaborated with a team to achieve great things. He believes that a great amount of what he is proud of revolves around not what he did, but what others did.
“I think that, 35 years of education, I feel comfortable with my career, where it’s at,” said Halupnik, “I really wanted to set up the next person for success here. I love Southeast Polk, I have a huge interest that great things continue to happen here. So, this fall with the board election and the referendum passing, it just felt like the right time.”
With this retirement, Halupnik looks forward to doing things he enjoys. He plans to spend time with family, take time to travel, and further pursue hobbies such as fishing, golfing, and reading.
“I love reading to the elementary students, throwing out candy at the homecoming parade, just interacting with students,” said Halupnik. With some high school students a few years ago, “we made some snow day videos that we showed on YouTube on actual snow days that were just kind of goofy and fun. Interacting and having scenarios like this; I’ll miss that for sure.”
