Evaluating the Superintendent

Book excerpt: As local elections and other occurrences can transform a board and its direction, having a performance review cycle to ensure that all board members understand the philosophy undergirding the superintendent’s evaluation is critical to ensuring that all members of the governing board are operating within a similar framework and purpose as they approach the superintendent’s evaluation cycle. Acknowledging that superintendents have the potential to grow in their professional capacity, revisiting the philosophical underpinnings of the evaluation over time ensures that the process does not remain static. Each chapter within this text is designed to develop the basis for understanding the superintendent’s evaluation process to create opportunities for an open and continuous dialogue between superintendents and school boards. This book will support those charged with leading and governing public schools to implement effective evaluations for both school boards and superintendents that provide an objective and summative collection of the superintendent’s annual performance and his/her relative impact on targeted success within a given school year.