WARREN - As the 2012-13 academic year starts, students and staff at the city school district likely will see a few familiar faces, but in different places.
Warren School Board of Education this week confirmed its plans to vote on naming Michael Notar, principal at Warren G. Harding High School, the district's next superintendent at a special meeting today at 8 a.m.
Dante Capers, an assistant high school principal, is expected to be named the new principal.
On Thursday, Regina Patterson, board president, declined to comment on the changes until after the vote.
Notar had applied for the position during the district's last superintendent's search. However, the board awarded Bruce Thomas a three-year contract after an extensive national search. Thomas resigned from his post abruptly last month just one year into his contract.
The past few weeks, the school board had remained tight-lipped on how it planned to replace Thomas. However, after Notar was offered the superintendent's job at Pymatuning Valley Schools in Andover and was poised to accept that position this week, the Warren board moved swiftly to offer him a comparable post.
On Thursday, Notar said he preferred not to comment on the move until it was made official.
Prior to being hired as Warren's business manager in August 2010, Notar was the principal at Niles McKinley High School from 2007 until August 2010. In 2005, he was hired to be Brookfield schools superintendent.
In January, after high school principal Ruth Zitnik left Warren, Notar was named interim principal. At that time, he was charged with handling both the principal's and the business manager's responsibilities. He was officially named principal in May, receiving a two-year contract, effective July 1 through June 30, 2014, that paid him about $94,000 a year.
Aaron Schwab, Warren's communications coordinator, said the board did not want Notar to leave the district.
"They knew they wanted to keep him and decided this time to hire from within rather than going outside the district," Schwab said.
The school district officially named Thomas, who left Marietta City Schools after one year into his three-year contract there, to replace former superintendent Kathryn Hellweg in July 2011. In February 2011, the district agreed to pay Hellweg more than $100,000 to walk away from her contract five months before it was to expire.
Hellweg came to Warren from the Northwest Local Schools district in Hamilton County, near Cincinnati.
Meanwhile, Loree Richardson, Warren's associate superintendent, served as interim superintendent after Hellweg's departure, and again after Thomas quit. However, Richardson, who said she is preparing to retire, has never applied for the superintendent's position at Warren.