Middle School Hiring Additional Health and Wellness Teacher

The will have an additional health and wellness teacher this coming school year, after the Melrose School Committee approved the hire on Tuesday night.

At the previous School Committee meeting on July 26, Superintendent Joe Casey brought forward a request from middle school Principal Tom Brow to hire an additional teacher position that would be a mix of a French teacher position and a theater arts position.

After receiving feedback from the committee, however, on Tuesday night Casey said that he had spoken with Brow—who was on vacation and could not attend Tuesday's meeting—and said "we heard what the committee had to say," and instead proposed the new position be recast as a health and wellness teacher.

The need for an additional teacher position comes from the growing enrollment at the middle school. In September 2006, a year before the new middle school building opened, the school's enrollment was 780 students. Enrollment has steadily risen since then, with a projected enrollment of over 870 sixth-through-eighth graders expected to .

Classes have been previously assigned by Brow to the school librarian, guidance counselors and other assorted staff to meet the needs of growing enrollment, Casey told the committee last month.

The funding source for the new position comes from cost savings within Pupil Personnel Services, the district's special education department.

On Tuesday, Casey said that district Curriculum Director Pat Muxie assured him additional materials can be obtained for the new health and wellness teacher, who will work alongside existing health teacher Jean Keefe.

The superintendent also said he's confident the position can be filled before the start of school in 18 days.

"School Spring will give us quite a number of good candidates, I'm sure," Casey said, "but we still need to be about our business."