Kostan to replace retired administrators

LYNN – Facing several openings in his curriculum and instruction team this summer, Superintendent Nicholas Kostan has compiled applications and hopes to have each position filled by the time school starts in September.
Several veteran members of the district’s administrative curriculum team called it a career this summer, leaving four vacant positions for Kostan to fill in one of the most important departments in the administration.
Curriculum and instruction administrators are responsible for a variety of tasks, most importantly aligning the curriculum with state standards, organizing professional development and preparing students to take and pass the MCAS exams.
Under the current team the district has improved academically to the point where the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has removed Lynn from its commissioner’s watch list and re-classified the city as a priority two district, opening the door for funding opportunities and a more independent curriculum department.
After the successful year several members of the team informed Kostan that they would be retiring this summer. K-12 Math Assurance Specialist Richard McGuinness, Science Assurance Specialist David Linehan, English Assurance Specialist Janice Koskey and Director of Technology Integration Sharon Tucker have all either retired or plan to retire effective Aug. 30.
Executive Director of Curriculum and Instruction Joanne Roy also retired this summer and was replaced by former school support coordinator Susan Rowe.
Speaking in Kostan’s absence this week, Deputy Superintendent Jaye Warry said the deadline for submitting a resume has passed and that Kostan hopes to hold interviews with potential job candidates in two weeks.
In other personnel matters, all but nine full-time teachers have been assigned to classrooms for the fall, including teachers from the Washington and Fallon elementary schools who survived the closing of those two facilities.
Kostan and Business Administrator Kevin McHugh managed to put aside enough funding in the fiscal 2009 budget to re-hire nine teachers who would have lost their jobs to budget cuts. Those nine teachers will not be assigned until the end of September when the department has a better hold on enrollment numbers.
The closure of the two schools has caused hundreds of students to move to new buildings this year, which will increase class size and could overcrowd some rooms.
This, along with the annual problem of students enrolling late or moving from school to school in the first month of classes convinced Kostan to hold off on assigning those nine teachers.
Instead, the department will look at the numbers after September and assign those teachers to the schools that are most in need of another class to reduce class size and overcrowding.
“All of the teachers have gone through the annual bumping and bidding process and have been assigned,” said Warry. “But we will wait until early in the year (to assign the additional nine teachers) to see where all of our enrollment will fall. We really can’t be positively sure of enrollments until September.”