LEBANON — Technology teacher Craig Nelson will now spend half his time at Seven Oak Middle School as its new dean of students, overseeing student discipline and parent communication.

The job marks a new direction for Lebanon teachers, who are now eligible to look for “teacher leader” roles to expand their responsibilities in the district.

The Lebanon School Board voted 4-0 Thursday to approve the hiring, which takes effect immediately. Board member Mike Martin was absent.

Nelson will remain a salaried member of the Seven Oak faculty; he will not oversee teachers. Nelson will teach his technology class half the time and receive a stipend to cover the extra disciplinary duties. The stipend is $3,500 annually, prorated because the year already has begun.

Superintendent Rob Hess said the job is considered temporary. The district will evaluate the role in the next few months to see whether it remains necessary, should be expanded, or should stay the same.

Kim Fandino, president of the Lebanon Education Association, said Nelson is the first of what the association hopes will be many “teacher leaders:” full-time, certified teachers who take on additional roles.

Bo Yates’ promotion to principal of Lebanon High School this year left Seven Oak without an assistant principal. But that position usually comes with a pricetag of about $80,000, Fandino said.

Having a teacher take on just the student discipline portion of an assistant’s job saves the district money and allows the teacher to both exercise more leadership and receive more compensation without leaving the classroom entirely, she said.

“It’s moving up without moving out,” she said.

Lebanon received a grant from the nonprofit Chalkboard Project earlier this year to become part of a project called, “Creative Leadership Achieves Student Success,” or CLASS. Among other things, the CLASS project explores ways to reward teachers for finding ways to increase student achievement by improving their own skills or taking on new responsibilities.

Lebanon’s CLASS design team has been exploring the “teacher leader” model, Fandino said. In early October, the union agreed to a memorandum of understanding with the district to allow for the new roles. The “dean of students” job is the first.