Principals in the San Diego Unified School District will soon be getting a report card of their own. The San Diego school board has voted to revamp the way the district evaluates administrators. KPBS Reporter Ana Tintocalis has more.
Principals evaluate their teachers. But a new district report finds no one keeps a close watch over principals. School Superintendent Terry Grier says that's because the district relies on a subjective and sporadic evaluation process that's a decade old.
Grier now wants to revamp the entire evaluation process -- from the forms used to the questions asked.
Grier:
The instrument we have right now that we're using, quite frankly, is not a valid instrument. It doesn’t measure what research says are the characteristics of good principals and what their work should measure.
Grier believes the district has shied away from strict evaluations because a bad review usually ends up in court, costing the district more time and money.
Grier is proposing to pay outside consultants $250,000 to develop a new evaluation based on academic research.
School board member Sheila Jackson is in favor of a new evaluation, but against outsourcing the work.
Jackson
: To me this is an insult to our (district) staff. Because what you’re (Grier) saying is staff, ‘Even though we're paying you, you don't have to intelligence and the courage to produce a document to evaluate principals.’ We have lawyers on staff. So if we need to get a lawyers opinion, we have one on staff.
In the end, Jackson was one of only two school board members who voted against hiring the consultants. The new evaluations are expected to be handed out next school year.
Ana Tintocalis, KPBS News.
