BRASHER FALLS - The former elementary principal at St. Lawrence Central School will be taking over as high school principal for the next school year.

Lisa L. Grenville currently serves as the district’s director of instruction.

The move means Christopher W. Rose, who has been serving as both the middle and high school principal for the past year because of budget constraints, will be able to return his focus to the middle school. Tracy A. Davison will continue in her role as elementary principal, a job she took over when Mr. Rose assumed responsibility for the middle and high school.

Superintendent Stephen M. Putman stressed that, despite the move, there was no increase in administration.

“We’re not going to have any more administrators than we have now. That’s the first important thing,” he said.

“We cut one administrator last year, and we cut the business manager back to part-time by going to BOCES. We’re not changing the number of people, we’re changing the number of duties. I just think it’s probably the best solution with our reduced staffing,” Mr. Putman said.

He said that, under the change, Ms. Grenville will be able to oversee the high school while supervising special education.

“By regulation a CSE (Committee on Special Education) meeting can be run either by an administrator or someone who delivers special education services,” such as a special education teacher or speech pathologist, he said, adding that they would soon be posting to see if teachers were interested in participating in the CSE on a part-time basis in the afternoon or morning.

“We’ll patch it together at CSE,” Mr. Putman said. “If there are any tough meetings, such as demanding parents or challenging students, Lisa can run those meetings. For some of the challenging meetings, the building principals will make sure they’re at those meetings. We’ll make it work with the same number of administrators.”

Mr. Rose has spent this school year alternating his time between the high school and middle school, and, with the move he’ll be able to refocus on his efforts on the students in grades five through eight.

“Chris has done an outstanding job of keeping the two buildings functioning. There’s just so many things he didn’t have time to do,” Mr. Putman said.

Those included teacher observations and evaluations.

“I did quite a number and Lisa Grenville did quite a number. That’s a very important role for a building principal,” the superintendent said.

With the new evaluation of teacher performance, Mr. Putman said, “it’s going to be considerably more time-consuming.”

Ms. Grenville will officially take over the high school duties in mid-2012, he said.

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