By SANDY McGEE

CUMBERLAND — The  School Committee will discuss extending the contract of Superintendent of Schools Donna A. Morelle for another three years at a meeting on Thursday.

The discussion item, which is listed as “Superintendent’s Contract — extension up to 3 years,” has been posted on the agenda for the personnel sub-committee, which is scheduled to meet on Thursday at 6 p.m. at Cumberland High School.
A regular meeting of the School Committee will be held after the sub-committee’s meeting at 7:30 p.m. in the auditorium at the high school.
The announcement of this discussion comes less than a month after a crowd reacted with anger to news of the School Committee finalizing Morelle’s contract. During a public meeting on Feb. 14, the School Committee confirmed rumors they voted to approve her contract.
The announcement was met with a loud reaction of “boos” from the audience, which nearly filled every seat in the high school auditorium.
Morelle’s contract was first extended for one year after a secret vote taken at an executive session meeting on Oct. 26, 2006, by the then-outgoing School Committee.
The contract was extended with a unanimous 7-0 vote during the 2006 closed-door session.
All former Cumberland School Committee members were in attendance for the vote, including present-day members Donald Costa, Robert C. Thibodeau and Earl T. Wood.
osta previously said that in October 2006 he believed he was voting to approve the “Superintendent’s Goals and Objectives.”
“After reading the minutes of Oct. 26, the minutes read as the ‘Superintendent’s Goals and Objectives,’ not the superintendent’s contract extension,” Costa said. “I didn’t know what I was voting on.”
While the previous School Committee approved the contract extension, the superintendent reportedly didn’t accept the extension until Feb. 14.
The current School Committee voted 4 to 3 on Feb. 14 to approve her contract and salary. Opposing the contract’s approval were committee members Karen MacBeth, Costa and Wood.
Based on the proposed budget for the 2008 to 2009 school year, which has not been finalized, the superintendent’s salary is set at $127,369.80. This amount is an increase of nearly $4,000 from the 2008 amount of $123,660.
The superintendent has served Cumberland schools since July 2005, when she and former School Committee Chairman Paul Neves signed a three-year contract. With the one-year extension, her contract is currently set to expire in June 2009.