December 20, 2012RE: Superintendent Evaluation for 2012, Minority ReportThe Board of Education is tasked on a yearly basis with making an evaluation of the performance of theSuperintendent in his role as the chief education officer for the Denver Public Schools. Board PolicyCBIA governs the parameters of the Superintendent’s public evaluation in fulfilling adopted Districtobjectives, fiscal management of the District, District planning responsibilities and supervision andevaluation of District personnel.As part of this year’s assessment of the superintendent’s performance, the board minority wasinstructed by Board President Seawell to prepare “a minority report.” While preparing such a reportregrettably accentuates the split on the Denver Public Schools Board of Education, it is necessary tocreate a separate assessment of the Superintendent because the board’s majority will not make use of long-standing metrics established by both the Denver Plan and school board policy when assessing theSuperintendent.Based on our assessment, the Superintendent receives the following evaluation of his performance forthe past year:
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Fulfillment of District Objectives:
The superintendent receives two evaluations of “does notmeet” his performance objectives and two “partially meets” his objectives for this area.Following the model set forth by the board majority, in that “partially meets” will be treated as“does not meet,” the Superintendent has not met four of his performance objectives.
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Fiscal Management of the District:
The superintendent receives one evaluation of “does notmeet” his performance objectives and one “partially meets” his objectives for this area.
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District Planning and Management:
The superintendent receives an evaluations of “does notmeet” his performance objectives for this area.
Of greatest concern is the evaluation of the superintendent’s ability to plan and manage the district.While we considered many possible outcomes for the initiatives created by the superintendent, andsome of these outcomes are potentially positive, the superintendent and his staff seem to disregardboard policy on an all-too-frequent basis.It is our feeling the number of policies violated suggests a repeated pattern of willful and intentionalviolations of these policies. However, this superintendent has never been evaluated based oncompliance with board policy, so the members of the board’s minority believe the superintendentshould be provided with guidance and an understanding that, should he choose to continue to violatepolicy, the members of the board’s minority will seek his termination.Board policy is especially important to the model under which the Denver Board of Education expects tooperate policy and governance. This model has long been established as a preferred way for schoolboards to help create organizations that are successful. However, it is not possible to follow this modelwhen the CEO repeatedly ignores policy, especially those surrounding community involvement, financialtransparency, and governance that should be provided by the school board.
The Superintendent is to receive a maximum bonus of $50,000 according to his employment contract, tobe divided between objective and subjective measures. Using the majority members’ procedure tocount “partially met” objectives as “not met,” we have concluded that only four District goals have beenmet for this year. We recommend the payment of $5,264 to the Superintendent for objective goalsachieved.With respect to subjective goals, we are troubled by what appears to be a repeated, willful andintentional disregard of Board policies; therefore, we cannot recommend any portion of theperformance-based compensation for which the Superintendent is eligible at this time, for this year.We eagerly anticipate the Board’s impending work on the retooling of the Denver Plan and look forwardto the opportunity to work in close concert with our colleagues on the board majority.Respectfully submitted,Jeanne Kaplan, Director, DPS District 3 (Central Denver)Arturo Jimenez, Director, DPS District 5 (Downtown, Northwest and West Denver)Andrea Merida, Director, DPS District 2 (West and Southwest Denver)
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