One day after voters approved Wiscasset’s new school budget, the School Committee on June 15 named a Brunswick woman to fill the newly created, districtwide job of athletic director and assistant principal.

Mandy Lewis, an English teacher for 12 years at Yarmouth High School, will make $69,725 for the next year carrying out the department’s vision for the position to serve grades K-12 in a number of areas, Superintendent of Schools Heather Wilmot said in an interview after the committee’s 5-0 vote to hire Lewis.

Lewis’ work will involve student behaviors and athletics, but also helping to maintain a positive culture, Wilmot said.

It was a thorough selection process that included an advisory committee from a cross-section of the school community including a parent, a coach, a student and administrators, and encompassed multiple rounds of interviews and other means, Wilmot said. Candidates in one round were tasked with showing how they would respond to a student with challenging behaviors, she said.

Wiscasset Middle High School Principal Peg Armstrong said in a separate interview that she was looking forward to having Lewis on-board. Lewis’ references were glowing, Armstrong said.

Lewis has a bachelor’s degree in English from Ithaca College and a master of science degree in education, with a major in teaching and learning, from the University of Southern Maine, Wilmot said. In addition to her teaching experience, Lewis has been a student senate adviser, coached varsity field hockey and served as a ninth grade team leader, a case manager on student assistance teams that help engage students, and worked with at-risk students in several settings, Wilmot said.

“Her background was diverse, both in high-quality teaching and learning and in interventions and supports for kids, and her coaching background,” Wilmot said about Lewis’ pick for the job.

After Wiscasset merged its three schools into two in 2015, Wiscasset Elementary School had no assistant principal and the Wiscasset Middle High School athletic director and assistant principal’s slots were each quarter-time and held by Nate Stubbert. Administrators looked on the anticipated expansion to two half-time slots as an opportunity to create a new, districtwide position on both fronts, Wilmot said.

Stubbert is staying on at WMHS, in the newly restored, full-time slot of alternative education teacher, Armstrong and Wilmot said. He served in it while it was a half-time slot and he was in the two other part-time slots; Armstrong argued successfully to the school committee for the job to return to full-time in the budget that went on to voter approval June 14.

Stubbert knows the program and the kids. “So he’ll come in (to the full-time position) with a lot of information,” Armstrong said.

Stubbert declined comment in an email response to the Wiscasset Newspaper June 16.

Lewis was not immediately available for comment on her Wiscasset job.

The committee met in an executive, or closed-door session prior to naming Lewis to the new districtwide job. After the public vote, members went into a second executive session of the night over a personnel matter. Then they returned to the WMHS library and voted to grant an employee a one-year leave. They did not identify the employee. Wilmot said afterward she cannot disclose the employee’s name.