Ann Arbor’s Mitchell Elementary School and Scarlett Middle School will see some administrative changes leading up to the beginning of the schools’ partnership with the University of Michigan.

District spokeswoman Liz Margolis said Kathy Scarnecchia will leave her post as principal of Mitchell at the end of the semester and will become the administrative liaison for the Mitchell/Scarlett-UM Partnership. 

She will be working with the staff of both Mitchell and Scarlett to plan teacher education opportunities, working with U-M interns and meeting with multiple committees to make preparations for the new partnership.

Taking over Scarnecchia’s post at Mitchell will be Scarlett assistant principal Edward Broom, who will serve on an interim basis, Margolis said. Assuming his position at Scarlett will be Jaye Peterson, who is currently a physical education teacher at Scarlett, she said.

Margolis said the positions are all considered interim right now. She said the district will look at extending the positions into the first semester of the 2011-12 school year if the district has determined more time is needed to develop the partnership.

“We just felt strongly that in order to make this happen, we needed to devote an administrator’s time to really concentrating on the partnership effort,” Margolis said.

The program is a partnership between Mitchell, Scarlett and the U-M School of Education. Teacher candidates from U-M would work with teachers from the Ann Arbor school district to learn about the craft of teaching and help increase student achievement.

The partnership has been hotly debated among parents and school officials since it became known to the public in September. The program originally included a balanced calendar, but that aspect of the plan was dropped in December after district officials received feedback from parents at forums in November. The program is set to begin in the 2011-12 school year.

Kyle Feldscher covers K-12 education for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at kylefeldscher@annarbor.com.