What top pay can buy

School Superintendent Joan A. Connolly can't get Malden out of her head.

"I wake up in the morning with a list of concerns," said Connolly, 61, seated in her basement office at Malden 's Government Center. "I go to bed at night with a list of concerns."

The list may range from answering e-mails to crunching budget numbers to attending Family Math Night at an elementary school. "The job is very complicated . . . and worrisome," she said. "My Nextel is either in my pocket or plugged in on my kitchen counter. . . . My School Committee members know they can reach me at any time. . . . And now, with e-mail, anyone in the community feels free, as well they should, to contact me."

Connolly is retiring in June after seven years in Malden. She's earning a package worth $169,579 this year, making her the highest-paid Massachusetts public school superintendent north of Boston serving one community, according to a Globe review of superintendents' pay packages.

Mayor Richard C. Howard said Connolly is worth every penny.

"She's been a very effective leader for Malden," said Howard, who is also the School Committee chairman. "She believes that school systems in urban areas should be on the cutting edge of putting the great mass of kids that we educate into a position where they can compete for jobs."

Malden has 6,287 students, almost half from low-income families. Students whose first language is not English or who have limited proficiency account for 45 percent of the student population, according to data published by the state Department of Education.

"There are 52 languages other than English spoken in our schools," said Connolly, who lives in Rowley. "My strong belief is that children in Malden . . . deserve an absolutely comparable, if not better , education than any child in this state."

Three of Malden's five elementary schools must improve standardized test scores or face state intervention. "There are a great many challenges here," said Connolly, who holds a doctorate in education from the University of Massachusetts. "But I believe in our teachers, our administrators, and our kids. We will make progress."

When she leaves in June, Connolly will wrap up a 37-year career spent mostly in urban education. Her first job was as a guidance counselor in Salem, where she later became an assistant middle school principal. She went on to serve as principal of middle schools in Gloucester and Lincoln. She later became the assistant superintendent in Winthrop and was then promoted to superintendent. She came to Malden in 2000.

"I always wanted to be able to influence the conditions under which students learn in our schools," Connolly said, reflecting on her career path. "That was my reason for starting out as a guidance counselor. . . . I wanted to work with people, to smooth the pathway for children."

Connolly's path to urban education started in the early 1960s. As an undergraduate at Emmanuel College in Boston, she spent two summers working for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the civil rights organization founded by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. She registered African-Americans to vote in Virginia and once stayed in King's Atlanta home.

"He had just moved his family out, but he and Coretta were there moving boxes," she recalled. "He was incredibly charismatic, and I got to see him in his own home. The most important thing I learned from that experience was learning to be who I am. . . . I have the good fortune to make a living doing what I feel strongly about. I think that for me has been a real gift."