TUPPER LAKE -- The Tupper Lake School Board has tapped its elementary-school principal to lead the district as the next superintendent of schools.

L.P. Quinn Elementary Principal Seth McGowan was appointed Monday to lead the Tupper Lake Central School District.

McGowan replaces Dan Bower, who announced he would step down this spring, citing personal health reasons. Bower has led the district since 2005.

A student of music, McGowan taught band for about 10 years before serving as technology coordinator and principal in a career that's spanned more than 20 years in Tupper Lake.

"He's led the district in the direction that we wanted to be heading in, and we believe that he can further that as a superintendent," said Board President Mike Dechene.

McGowan, 43, who was hired for a salary of $105,000, said he had been encouraged by the school's faculty and administrators to apply for the position.

"I did it a little reluctantly at first, but I love Tupper Lake and I love the School District," McGowan said. "I believe strongly in the capabilities of the students and the teachers, and I really feel that some great things can come from the district and I'd like to be the one that takes us there."

McGowan begins August 1. Bower had planned on ending his tenure in July but agreed to extend his contract an extra month. He will be taking a job with Adirondack Medical Center in Lake Placid later this year, he said.

With McGowan's promotion, the district will begin a search for an elementary principal "immediately," board members said.

McGowan had been in a pool of roughly 10 candidates that was whittled down by a board-appointed search committee.

In other action, the board voted to ratify contracts for its teachers, which will require faculty to contribute toward their health plan for the first time.

Under the contract, teachers will receive an annual 4.25 percent pay increase through 2011. But in a concession to the district, faculty will now contribute $150 a year toward health insurance for single payers and $350 a year for family plans.

"Our plan was to try and get our foot in the door to get them to contribute," Dechene said.

Bower credited cooperation between district administrators and faculty for limiting the increase in health-insurance costs for next year. Health premiums had risen almost 10 percent annually for the past three years, he said, but that cooperation between nine districts in Franklin, Essex and Hamilton counties had limited the increase to 5 percent for the next school year.