Swampscott High principal candidates meet with parents, search committee

SWAMPSCOTT – Swampscott parents were able to get in on the principal-hiring process when candidates stopped by the middle school during their visits and final interviews in town this week.On Thursday afternoon, a small group of parents and members of the principal search committee met with candidate Edward Rozmiarek of Beverly, the current headmaster of Lowell High School.Rozmiarek said he thought Swampscott would be a good fit for him because he was looking to return to a small community like that of North Reading, where he was an assistant principal before taking the position in Lowell. In Swampscott, he said, he could focus on turning proficient test-takers into advanced ones rather than lowering the high school dropout rate.?Swampscott is my ideal kind of school,” said Rozmiarek. “It?s the size a public high school should be.”Rozmiarek talked about working with the new teacher evaluation system that focuses on goal-setting in the classroom and the curriculum that he hoped would trickle down to motivate the students to excel. “They need to see the future, to see where they?re going to see how important what they?re doing now is,” he said.Rozmiarek said he would like to build programs where the students collaborate in an interdisciplinary style that reflects the global economy, rather than looking at collaboration as “cheating.”When asked about his plans in regard to Swampscott?s reputation for administrative turnover, Rozmiarek added, “This is what I?m looking to do. I have no plans to move on.”Students, parents, faculty and staff, and other members of the Swampscott community were invited to fill out an evaluation form for each candidate highlighting his strengths and weakness to help the search committee choose the final candidate to hire.Rozmiarek?s final interview after the open forum on Thursday marked the end of the interview process. The two other candidates, John Dillon, assistant principal at Minuteman Regional Vocational Technical High School in Lexington, and Andrew Wulf, administrator of teaching and learning at Salem High School, visited the middle school on Wednesday.The three finalists were chosen from a pool of 39 applicants who were narrowed down to 11 semi-finalists by Superintendent Lynne Celli?s principal search committee. The search committee had previously expected to decide by May 2; an announcement is possible anytime.Kait Taylor can be reached at [email protected].