Niles High School gets new principal

NILES — Michael Notar, who resigned as Brookfield schools superintendent in May, has been hired as Niles High School principal.

The Niles Board of Education approved Superintendent Rocco Adduci’s recommendation Tuesday and agreed to a three-year contract for Notar, who was Brookfield superintendent for two years.

Notar, of Boardman, will earn $74,500 in his first year, with his pay for the next two years to be determined later.

“We’re very pleased to have someone of Mike’s caliber,” Adduci said.

Before serving as Brookfield superintendent, Notar was an elementary school principal in the Boardman Local school district four years and also worked in the Crestview and South Range school districts. He began his career as a teacher in the Ottoville Local School District in Ottoville, Ohio, in 1993.

Notar replaces Mark Pallante, who resigned to take a position as high school principal and athletic director at LaBrae.

Though the Brookfield school district has been in a state of controversy recently, Notar said the controversy did not cause him to leave Brookfield.

The school district was placed under state fiscal watch in spring 2006, and the Brookfield Save Our Schools committee, formed by a group of residents concerned with the operation of the schools, had called for the board to fire Notar in February, although the board declined to do so.