gretzinger evaluation

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CONFIDENTIAL

Kingston City School District

Board of Education

Evaluation of the Superintendent

Summary Work Booklet

2010-2011

based on model from New York State Council of School Superintendents


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Board Member Worksheet

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IntroductionThe b oards evaluation of the superintendent is one of its most important functions. Its also mandated

by law (8 NYCRR 100.2(o)(2) requires an evaluation on an annual basis). The evaluation is theinstrument through which the board judges the superintendent, how (s)he is performing, whether itsgoals for the district are being achieved and what needs to be done if they are not. The evaluation oftenforms the foundation for remuneration changes in the future. As importantly, past evaluations are

something the superintendent may rely on both internally and externally as evidence of excellentperformance should board goals or compositions change dramatically.

Despite this importance, many districts have evaluation processes that are afterthoughts, insubstantialor mere compliance exercises. At best, these are an opportunity lost, at worst, they can jeopardize thesuperintendent.

A strong evaluation format can: Focus the district on goals and priorities; Lead to transparent measures of performance and reasonable targets to meet; Surface tensions or issues; Serve as a record of strong performance over time; Clarify areas where the board-superintendent relationship can be improved.

A weak evaluation format can: Overweight management considerations at the expense of broad, ambitious goals; Serve as a platform to magnify the minority opinions of single board members; Devolve into ad hoc expressions of a recent frustration; Fail to record a superintendent s successes for future reference.

Given the importance and consequences, what keeps superintendents and boards from adoptingexcellent evaluations?

They take time to plan the best evaluations start with goals and measures determined anddeveloped at the beginning of the year;

They narrow focus which sometimes worries board members that they cant raise any new concerns later;

They are by their nature evaluative which makes superintendents wary of elaborate exercisesthat lengthen the list of ways to fail ;

CEO evaluation is unfamiliar territory even the savviest board member rarely has training orexperience evaluating high-level leaders of large, complex organizations.

THE COUNCIL S Model Superintendent Evaluation helps boards and superintendents to developthoughtful, constructive evaluations that advance district goals and keep the leadership team healthy. Itis by no means the only model, just a suggestion.


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ImplementationTHE COUNCIL S Model Superintendent Evaluation aims to serve as a basis to steer conversations with

boards of education to perform their evaluation role effectively and in a way that can be directly linked tostudent achievement.

The Model was built on a common set of leadership requirements that typically appear insuperintendent evaluations and ties them to the professional standards established by the American

Association of School Administrators (AASA) developed jointly with the National School Boards Association (NSBA).

The superintendents goals should always be as they are here - a major focus of the annualperformance evaluation. The goals should be mutually developed by the superintendent and the boardof education and should be realistic for the superintendent and the staff to achieve. T HE COUNCIL suggests a maximum of five goals.

In addition to these goals, the eight standards developed by AASA and NSBA describe the fundamental job requirements which should be addressed by superintendents during the evaluation process. Foreach professional standard, AASA has identified suggested performance indicators which describe

evidence of attainment of the standard. These standards are an integral part of the process thesuperintendent uses to achieve personal and organizational goals.

The evaluation is also a tool for the superintendent to create and maintain a solid leadership team withthe board members. A well designed evaluation process is the number one factor in building andsustaining a board-superintendent relationship.

The evaluation process gives the board governance team and the superintendent an opportunity to reachdetailed agreement on the leadership targets for the upcoming year. The boards assessment of thecurrent year performance will also bring to the surface issues that may need serious attention by thesuperintendent in the upcoming year. Expand the evaluation process to open up a dialogue to dealopenly with issues and form a cohesive relationship.

FOILability

There are three basic parts to a superintendents evaluation:

(1) a description of the job duties, or goals to be achieved by the superintendent,(2) a subjective analysis, or opinion as to how well the superintendent met the standards and goals, and(3) a final rating of good, excellent, satisfactory, etc.

Each section of the evaluation is subject to different levels of disclosure under the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL).


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Section FOIL-able? Rationale(1) a description of the job duties, or

goals to be achieved by thesuperintendent

YES Disclosure of goals has been deemed to be apermissible rather than an unwarrantedinvasion of a superintendents personal privacy,

because goals are relevant to the performance of the official duties which relate to the position of

the superintendent, and not to the individual.1

(2) a subjective analysis, or opinion asto how well the superintendent hasmet the standards and goals

NO The second component, which involves areviewers subjective opinion can be withheld, asan unwarranted invasion of personal privacy,and on the grounds that a subjective commentconstitutes an opinion concerning performance.

(3) a final rating of good,excellent, satisfactory, etc.

YES The final summative rating of thesuperintendent can also be disclosed because itconstitutes a final agency determination whichmakes the final rating available pursuant to aFOIL request. Remember, if a superintendentssalary increase, or merit pay is based on

performance, the evaluation is subject to FOIL.

Therefore, individual scores from individual board members are not final agency determinations andare therefore not subject to FOIL. By contrast, any summative number or summative comments approved

by the entire board would constitute a final agency determination, they are subject to FOIL.

As you review the attached, do not be put off by the size of this document. There is a great deal of whitespace dedicated for writing. T HE COUNCIL purposely created this document as one which could be readily adopted by a district with few changes. In doing that we dedicated space for writing comments, goals, etc.as described. Whether a districts final evaluative instrument is as lengthy as this ends up being a districtspecific decision. Consider this format and determine what will work best for you.

In addition, T HE COUNCIL has available several other sample evaluations (available upon request in AdobePDF format) ranging in size and complexity from 2 to 15 pages.

For more information, please contact Michele V. Handzel, General Counsel, New York State Council of School Superintendents at (518) 449-1063, or by email: [email protected]

1 See generally Ops. NYS Committee on Open Government 8126 (1994), 8664 (1995), 8763 (1995). Available at:http://www.dos.state.ny.us/coog/foil_listing/findex.html


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