Marblehead super wants to add 3 aides

MARBLEHEAD – Superintendent of Schools Greg Maass plans to add three positions to his administration in next year?s budget.Maass has told the School Committee he wants to hire an assistant superintendent for curriculum, a human resources director and a second technology supervisor.Maass said he and Interim School Business Manager Kevin Meagher are at work on next year?s school budget with School Committee budget liaisons Dick Nohelty and Kathleen Leonardson, and plan to pay for the new hires by realigning the existing budget, not by adding to it.He said his proposed hires will help establish “a coherent, continuous and connected curriculum,” “a technology system that supports performance-measuring assessment” and develop and support Marblehead?s state-mandated Massachusetts Educator Evaluation model, which the state requires communities to have in place by fall.Committee members plan to discuss budget specifics and the hires Thursday evening.Committee member Thomas Connolly asked Maass if the three proposals were linked, or if the committee could reject one of them and adopt the others.Maass told the committee the proposals were independent of each other.The superintendent told the committee that human resources issues are currently handled by one administrative employee, “but now she needs help.” He said the current technology director, Kathy Comeau, covers the operations side of the area well, “but we need a bigger long-term strategic plan.”Maass said he so far has conducted a written survey of staff, parents and the community, sifted through 275 written comments and conducted more than 100 interviews looking for ways to improve the Marblehead schools.