LEICESTER, Mass. — After two rounds of interviews conducted by a team of administrators and teachers, Marilyn Tencza has been selected as the new curriculum director, and will take the lead as the The Leicester School District moves forward with its ongoing curriculum redevelopment effort.

"I'm very excited about this," said superintendent Paul Soojian. "I think it's something that is going to keep us moving in the right direction."

The focus of Leicester's curriculum initiative will be horizontal and vertical alignment within the K-12 program and transitioning between grades and buildings.

The effort had been under the coordination of Christine Johnson, former Director of Finance and Operations for Leicester Public Schools, and during her tenure the curriculum design team was selected and mobilized to evaluate the K-16 program.

When Johnson stepped down to take on a new position in the Northborough-Southborough Regional School District, Memorial School assistant principal Melissa Provost took the reigns of the project.

Yet after having charged the superintendent with the curriculum development project as one of their top initiatives, School Committee members had worried that the effort had somewhat slowed down without a full-time, dedicated person at the helm.

Now Tencza will take on the role of curriculum coordinator, and the district is again looking forward to continuing the initiative, which is grant funded through the Title 2A Education Quality Grant.

"The teachers that sat on the interview committee and that are working on our curriculum design team, they were all so excited about the fact that we're moving forward with this," said Soojian. "They've made some progress, and they don't want to lose it."

The first choice of the interview team, Tencza holds a Master's degree in Educational Leadership from Worcester State, and is completing her doctoral program in March from Boston College.

Previous to her new position, Tencza had worked in the Sutton district for three years and the Quabbin Regional School District for seven years, in addition to teaching at the American International College.

Her experience in curriculum involves writing English Language Arts Curriculum for the Sutton Middle School, supervising teachers in utilizing the Understanding by Design method for writing curriculum.standards, and aligning the high school curriculum with the common core in preparation for a NEASC site visit.

Tencza also served as a Skillful Teacher Trainer for the city of Worcester, and is certified as a superintendent/assistant superintendent, as well as holding certification in other areas.

"The anticipation here is that she will hopefully be able to come aboard by March 19," said Soojian.