The Greene County Schools board of education plans to make evaluating the job performance of the superintendent more rigorous and more frequent.
Board president Mark Peters, John McConnell and Steve Fisher all attended a workshop on superintendent evaluations at the annual Iowa Association of School Boards convention in November. Peters said the take-away from the session was that evaluation should be an ongoing process, not something that’s done just once in the spring.
Peters said the current evaluation system is lacking because the superintendent isn’t given a clear set of expectations at the beginning of the year. He wants to set goals in August, do one or two “mini evaluations,” and then a full evaluation in the spring.
Fisher got information from the Dubuque school district about its evaluation process. There, evaluations are done throughout the year, and every other year data is gathered by surveying administrators and a sampling of staff, parents and students.
Board member Steve Karber said the board should also evaluate themselves.
“What we’ve done in the past isn’t fair. You evaluate him (the superintendent) once and walk away, and he doesn’t know what that really means and the board changes. It’s a haphazard way,” board member Sam Harding said.
Peters appointed Fisher, Harding and Catherine Wilson to a committee to develop a proposal to present at the Feb. 21 meeting.
