360 feedback for Superintendent Evaluation

[Paul Haggett]

Hello Forum members:

One of the members of my board has been lobbying for a 360 review to be incorporated into our annual superintendent evaluation for several years.  As I understand it, this means soliciting input and opinions about the superintendent's performance from community, admins, teaching staff, support staff, community and students.  Understanding that it is the job of the board to evaluate the superintendent, has anyone out there incorporated such input into their evaluation formula?

Paul Haggett, Massena

[Andrea Randle]

I agree with Randy Kerr's comment below. I really like his suggestion of informally asking families/community members/staff "how do you think we are doing" at any point in the year.

[Randy Kerr]

Hi, Paul. I've been on our Board for over 30 years and president for most of that. I would not recommend soliciting that type of input. First, as you indicate, it is the Board's responsibility alone to evaluate the Superintendent. Second, it would make it very easy in doing such a thing to have others become curious and ask for how the evaluation went or even FOIL the Superintendent's evaluation. This is a Board responsibility and the members should be tuned in enough to the community and District happenings to do that job. At most they could ask around informally with things like "how do you think we're doing?" which is something that members might want to consider doing anyway (... and not just at evaluation time). If asked why they are asking, members don't have to say "well, we are doing our annual evaluation of the Superintendent", they can say " i think it's important to ask".... because it is.

[Lester Olsson]

My board is currently reviewing how we handle evaluations. We use a Word doc that has rubrics that most of us know by now. The problem comes when we have a rubric, just as an example, that asks us to review how the sup’t interacts with his/her staff. Some board members are in the school enough to give an informed answer to that. But others, not so much. Sometime board members leave rubrics blank because they simply think they don’t know enough to answer. I agree it’s the board’s job to evaluate but sometimes we may not have the necessary information to do so. So now we are considering the 360 feedback solution. I’m not sure how we would even implement it at this point to be honest, but I think it definitely has merit.

[Paul Haggett]

Cindy:
Thanks for your input! It appears that my colleague who was hot on 360 evaluation has decided it’s more work developing a way to do it than he has time to take on. I am also attempting to steer my board toward a self evaluation for the first time in my time on the board (8 years) and likely well before that. I asked our Policy Committee to look at our current policy on self evaluation, which we have ignored for a long time. I’m hoping the policy review will provide the buy-in we will need to implement the self evaluation.

[Cindy Strong]

Sorry I'm replying to an old post, but I thought I would chime in. Our school board has been doing a Superintendent Evaluation for at least 10 years along with our own school board Evaluation. My belief is the Superintendent works for the Board therefore they should implement the Evaluation. That being said we do take into account his relationships with the staff the community etc. Also taking into account feedback here and there and how he handles situations etc.

[Paul Haggett]

Great comment Robbin. I appreciate your perspective!

[Robbin Griffin]

I believe that active board members receive anecdotal feedback all year from stakeholders in a variety of ways. I take notice of how the Superintendent interacts with members of committees that I serve on as do my colleagues. Observation is a great tool and if I notice interactions that seem strained, I will follow up with the Superintendent. I learn a lot this way and find that I can better support our Superintendent. Community members are quick to complain if they feel the Superintendent has failed to respond to them. Observation and involvement in committees and school activities can provide as much as a survey.

[Bill Grau]

We have not done this on our board, but it is an interesting idea. Having done this at work, on both sides, the results always need to be taken with a grain of salt and view the outliers appropriately.

[Paul Haggett]

Bonnie, we are in our 3rd year using SuperEval as well. One of my concerns is SuperEval does not incorporate 360 feedback. We’d have to do that separately.

[Bonnie Berry]

We have used Super Eval for two years now and really like it. We also use it for the Board Self Evaluation. Board members input responses and use the rating scale of 1-4 like the rubrics for teachers. The responses are compiled in a report to share with the Board and Superintendent. The Superintendent has an input piece for goals and progress on goals. Action plans can be developed from the low areas.