Published April 10, 2020
MELROSE — The School Committee and incoming Supt. of Schools Dr. Julie Kukenberger have agreed on a three-year deal that will pay her a starting salary of $183,000. The school board okayed the contract at their meeting this week, with the city’s next chief educational officer participating remotely like everyone else.
Kukenberger, currently the interim leader of the Hamilton-Wenham regional school district, will succeed Cyndy Taymore, who is retiring at the end of this virus-plagued academic year.
The New Hampshire resident, wife and mother of one was chosen unanimously as Taymore’s successor on March 19 over the other finalists for the school superintendent’s job, Brookline schools’ Benjamin Lummus and Revere’s Joshua Vadala. Vadala was recently named Peabody’s next educational leader.
Kukenberger has served this year as interim leader of the Hamilton-Wenham district. Her prior central office experience includes: three years as superintendent of schools in Scarborough, Maine; two years as assistant superintendent of schools in Haverhill, Massachusetts; and almost two years as director of Curriculum and Instruction for the North Hanover Township School District, New Jersey.
In addition, she has been a principal, assistant principal, and classroom teacher at the elementary level in the North Hanover Township School District, McGuire Air Force Base, New Jersey. Dr. Kukenberger has an Ed.D. in Educational Leadership for Social Justice from Boston College, a master of arts in Educational Administration from Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey, and a bachelor of arts in Elementary Education from Rider University in Lawrenceville, New Jersey.
Kukenberger’s starting salary is within the range set by the School Committee as it began a search for Cyndy Taymore’s successor at the beginning of the calendar year. Taymore is currently making $189,000, according to committee Chair Ed O’Connell. That figure, however, should be closer to $196,000; Taymore did not accept a salary increase during a previous rough financial stretch for the local school system.
Kukenberger and the other finalists were culled from an impressive field of candidates for the local superintendent of schools’ position. A Screening Committee forwarding their names to the School Committee was comprised of School Committee members Margaret Driscoll (Chair), Jennifer Razi-Thomas, and Jennifer McAndrew; Assistant Superintendent Margaret Adams; teachers Joellen Beaudet, Leslie Means, and Anthony DiBenedetto; school Principal Michael Tracy; community representatives Bert Whittier and Sheilah Gauch; education expert Russell Johnston; and parents Conor O’Keefe, Manjula Karamcheti, Ward Hamilton, Ani Talarico Breay and Jacy Ippolito.
The Screening Committee was assisted in this process by search consultants from the Edward J. Collins, Jr. Center for Public Management at UMass Boston.