The South Portland school board OKs a superintendent and launches a middle school planning committee.

The South Portland Board of Education has approved a two-year contract for the new superintendent of schools, Ken Kunin, as well as given its approval for the creation of a new Middle School Facilities Committee.

On Monday, the school board voted 6-0 to hire Kunin to head the school department at a starting salary of $127,000, which is $6,900 less than outgoing superintendent, Suzanne Godin.

Kunin will be on the job starting Aug. 1, and his contract runs through June 30, 2017.

The board agreed to give Kunin an extra month to begin work since he will be moving his family from Rome, Italy, back to Maine. Kunin is serving as the secondary principal at the American Overseas School of Rome through July 1.

“It is a tremendous honor to be chosen superintendent of (South Portland’s) eight wonderful schools (and be) in a community committed to providing an excellent education for all students,” Kunin said in an email to the Current.

He added, “While I cannot honestly say I look forward to every late night meeting or all of the inevitable challenging situations that come with this role, I can absolutely say that being in schools and seeing evidence of student excellence is what I look forward to and what keeps me focused.”

Prior to his stint in Rome, Kunin served as the principal at Deering High School and Reiche Community School, both in Portland, and worked as a senior educational policy research consultant at the University of Southern Maine.

Kunin has a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Brown University and a master’s in special education from Lesley University, along with a certificate of advanced study in educational leadership from the University of Southern Maine.

In a prior interview, Kunin said one of his first priorities would be building relationships and continuing the South Portland School Department’s “vision for meeting (the) challenges of educating all students for an ever-evolving world.”

During Monday’s school board meeting, chairman Dick Matthews said he’s looking forward to welcoming Kunin and “having him move the district forward.”

In addition to approving Kunin’s contract, the school board also approved the creation of a new committee charged with reviewing the city’s two middle schools and making a recommendation to the board regarding renovation or new construction.

What to do with the city’s middle schools, Mahoney and Memorial, has been under discussion for years in South Portland, with construction of one combined school at the site of Memorial Middle School on Wescott Road being the most often-mentioned solution.

The specific charge for the new 20-member facilities committee is to: “Study the physical plants, capacity needs and educational programming of the Mahoney Middle School and the Memorial Middle School to develop a plan for renovation/construction to put forward to the Board of Education,” according to a memo provided to the school board by Godin.

Godin told the board Monday the new committee has a “heavy preponderance of community members,” including parents and students, along with teachers, school administrators, city councilors and school board members.

“This should be a broad-based committee,” Godin added, saying anyone interested in serving should contact her office no later than May 1. For now Assistant Superintendent Kathryn Germani will facilitate the committee, which will meet the third Thursday of each month.

One reason the Memorial Middle School site has been favored for construction of a new grade 6-8 facility is because it has more acreage and more parking than Mahoney, which is located on the corner of Broadway and Ocean Street in downtown.

Moving the city’s 710 middle school students into one building would also likely free up Mahoney for reuse as a new City Hall, an idea that has also been floated for a long time. Other construction needs, such as the newly completed renovation and addition at the high school and a new public works facility, have taken precedence over middle school consolidation in recent years.

Ken Kunin