Norwin assistant superintendent's new 5-year deal is too costly, school board member says

Norwin’s assistant superintendent received a five-year contract Monday, but not before a school board member questioned whether the salary in her new deal was too high.

Natalie McCracken, who has been the assistant superintendent since 2019, was approved for the new contract on a 6-1 vote, with one abstention by Alex Detschelt, who said he abstained because she is one of his neighbors. McCracken, whose annual salary is $169,686, will receive $172,239 in the 2024-25 school year, plus 1.5% annual pay raises for proficient or distinguished ratings on her job performance.

Shawna Ilagan joined other board members last month in voting to retain McCracken as the assistant superintendent for another five years.

But, Ilagan said she opposed the details in the contract because she believed it was too much money for a district that has to watch its spending. With the raise, a $2,400 bonus and a $7,584 payment for opting out of the district’s health insurance plan, the district would pay McCracken $182,223 in the upcoming school year.

Ilagan said she found a salary survey for assistant superintendents that pegged the average salary at about $147,000. Ilagan said she favored giving McCracken a three-year contract that had smaller raises or no bonuses.

The district is spending money at a time when the board has been told it will have to pay a higher salary to attract a superintendent to replace Jeff Taylor, who announced last month he was resigning as of June 30, Ilagan said.

McCracken earned her superintendent’s letter of eligibility from California University of Pennsylvania, now PennWest University, in 2011. She declined to comment following the meeting on whether she plans to apply for the superintendent’s position. The deadline for applications is April 2.

Taylor evaluated McCracken’s performance in the 2022-23 school year as having “satisfactorily met the outlined objective performance standards” that included student growth and achievement, organizational leadership, district operations, communication and community relations and professionalism.

McCracken previously was a teacher at Hillcrest Intermediate School and the principal at Sunset Valley Elementary School. McCracken had been the assistant superintendent of elementary education from 2012 to 2019, when the district also had an assistant superintendent for secondary education.

In another administrative move, the board hired Nicholas Fallone as the assistant high school principal for the remainder of the current school year at a prorated salary of $107,500. Fallone had been the acting assistant high school principal since Tim McCabe retired in Febuary.

Ilagan and Raymond Kocak questioned the district’s process under which Fallone was hired as the principal, without opening the position to any other Norwin employee who had earned a principal’s certification. Ilagan said her opposition to the hiring was the process and not Fallone.

“We pay for those papers and we’re not even using them,” Kocak said, referring to the district’s policy of covering the cost of the employees’ obtaining their principal’s certification.

The district paid for 18 teachers on the staff to earn their principal’s certification in order to be eligible for positions at Norwin that may come open only once every 10 years, Kocak said.

Norwin’s human resources department could have interviewed candidates for the principal’s job, Kocak said.

Taylor said following the meeting that Fallone had been the principal of the Norwin Online Academy and had been the acting principal when McCabe had taken a leave of absence from the job this year.

Darlene Ciocca, a former school board president who did not seek reelection last year, questioned why the position of high school principal was never posted, thus never giving anyone else the opportunity to apply for the job.