LIVERMORE FALLS – SAD 36 directors voted Thursday to give the high school’s assistant principal a two-year contract and a $4,000 increase for additional duties of athletic director and providing administrative support to guidance.

That will bring Vicki Thayer-Adams’ salary to the range of about $75,000, Superintendent Terry Despres said.

Directors voted in August to replace Thayer-Adams’ health teaching duties with administrative duties.

The board eliminated the full-time assistant principal position two years ago to make it a stipend position.

Then full-time assistant Principal Bill Schenck, who has since died, lost his job with the restructuring, which included adding a leadership council made up of three teachers, the part-time assistant principal and principal.

One teacher has since left school and that leadership position has not been filled. The two other teachers on the council are involved with other duties at the school.

The athletic director, who is under contract, will be assigned tasks related to athletics.

In another action, the board voted 8-1, with Director Denise Rodzen opposed, to approve the first reading of a promotion and retention policy for the middle school seventh- and eighth-graders.

The policy has had a legal review and will have a second reading for directors to consider adoption in the future.

The policy would award credits to students who successfully completed their academic program and keep them in their current grade level if they failed to gain those credits.

The proposal would require students in the seventh and eighth grade to earn one credit each for successfully completing core courses of language arts, math, science, social studies, and reading. Students would also earn a half-credit each for successfully completing unified arts courses of physical education, health and art.

In order for seventh-graders to be promoted to eighth grade, they must earn 6.5 credits and eighth-graders would need to earn 6.5 credits to move to the ninth grade.

If students do not earn all the credits required for promotion, they must successfully complete a summer school program in the respective areas. If they do not successfully complete the summer school program, they will be kept in their current grade level.

The policy, if it is approved, would take effect for students in grade eight during this school year and for both seventh- and eighth-graders beginning in 2008-09.

The sixth grade was not included in the policy at this time due to the transition factor of moving from elementary school to middle school.