Superintendent candidate Tempesta calls Saugus visit ‘a great day’

SAUGUS – A second day of site visits continued in Saugus Tuesday as superintendent candidate Michael Tempesta toured the district?s schools and met with staff and teachers.Tempesta said he was impressed by Saugus? “passionate educators” and called his visit Tuesday “a great day.”?I went to every school, and looked at the programs and asked questions,” said Tempesta. “People are really committed to education in this district. What stood out to me was the passion at every school and how strongly they felt about their programs for students ?”Tempesta, who is married with three kids, is currently the principal at Milford High School, a position he has held for three years. Before Milford, Tempesta was the principal at Ashland High School for five years. Tempesta said he started teaching English at Ashland 20 years ago before taking administrative courses.?I became an assistant principal at Sharon High School and stayed there for five years,” said Tempesta, who lives in Milford. “While I was at Sharon I was contacted by the people at Ashland to help them with a new schedule they were putting in. They were building a new high school, and the superintendent and I spoke about being the principal of that high school.”Tempesta has a degree in philosophy and a master?s degree in English education. He is also working to finish a PhD in educational leadership at Leslie University.Tempesta said he was attracted to Saugus because of its size, the similarities to the districts he?s worked in, and the current and potential school building projects.?Saugus has one project now and one that they?re looking to build,” said Tempesta. “Those kinds of things I have experience in and it seemed like a great district, particularly with the curriculum alignment and the progress they?ve made in the past couple of years ? It seemed like a great match in terms of size, similar budgets, similar needs.”Tempesta also said he?s a “strong proponent of technology” in the classroom noted his experience as a principal will help him if selected to be superintendent.?I do think the position, in terms of having to make tough decisions and direct line management and full-scale program implementation, I think it?s a very parallel experience,” said Tempesta. “Especially in terms of working with groups of people collaboratively.”Tempesta said he?s been successful in starting alternative education programs both at Ashland and Milford that have been helped students stay in school.?I?m very proud of those programs and they?re similar needs that have been expressed in Saugus,” he said.Tempesta also said he?s experienced in “getting the most out of resources” when budgets are tight.?That is another parallel issue that we had to deal with in Ashland,” he said. “We had the same size budget, staffing and pupil expenditure, and we had to do more. I?ve known that throughout my experience. Even in Sharon, which was a more affluent community, they still had funding issues and we had to make adjustments to schedule and program to accommodate those things.”Tuesday was the second day of candidate visits. Mashpee Superintendent Ann Bradshaw visited on Monday. Both tours were capped with a 4 p.m. public reception in the School Committee room. No one attended Monday?s reception and as of 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, no one showed up to meet Tempesta.A third candidate, Patricia Lally, withdrew her name to take a position in Holbrook. The School Committee will conduct final public interviews on Thursday, with Tempesta scheduled for 4 p.m. and Bradshaw scheduled for 5:30 p.m. in the School Committee room.Matt Tempesta can be reached at [email protected].