Larry Mendonca, the Oakdale Joint Unified School District’s Director of Pupil Services, was recently promoted and will assume responsibilities as the new Assistant Superintendent of Pupil Services and Facilities on July 1.

OJUSD Superintendent Marc Malone said that Mendonca will be taking over “new facility projects” as part of his new job title. The district has added a number of facilities projects to its docket and administrative oversight was needed. The facilities were previously overseen by former Assistant Superintendent for Business Tim Hern but his position was not filled when he left the district.

In addition to his pupil services duties, Mendonca has been involved with the facility project meetings and the change in job title and description were to formalize the responsibilities and duties he’s been performing.

“In recent years, the OJUSD district office has reduced staff by three positions as we worked through educations tough budget times,” Malone said. “We are not adding staff, only increasing the job responsibilities for Larry. Larry will be working closely with our architect, general contractor and program manager as we begin our construction projects for the new Central Kitchen and Multipurpose Room at Cloverland Elementary.”

The increase in costs to the district will be $2,273 for the 2013-14 year.

“Larry has a strong background in budget and school oversight,” Malone noted. “Having a district person assigned to these projects will help the OJUSD to maximize our resources and delivery our projects, on budget and on time. We are also looking to increase our ‘institutional knowledge’ of the construction process. This will allow the OJUSD to perform more of our own job oversight as move toward future projects.”