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Board approves superintendent goals and performance-pay model tied to student-success weighting
Summary
The board adopted five superintendent goals and a performance-pay weighting that assigns the largest share to student-success measures; members discussed attainability and alignment with the leader framework.
The Litchfield Elementary District Governing Board approved five superintendent goals for the 2025–26 school year and accepted a proposed performance-pay model that places the greatest weight on student-success indicators.
Superintendent Dr. Chris Davidson (as introduced in the meeting) presented five goals that mirror district priorities including student success, special education, external communications, evaluation process, and financial stewardship. Dr. Davidson said student success remains the district’s top goal and provided the board with 10 indicators that would constitute evidence for that goal.
Board members discussed how student-success measures would be defined and whether targets are realistic. Administrators said they and board members developed the indicators from multiple years of data and pre-COVID trends. A district official noted the administration and Board member input guided the selection of indicators and clarified that administrators view a 3% annual growth target as a ‘‘stretch’’ but practical component of a four-year plan to regain pre-COVID achievement levels: "If we wanna get some of those rates back again...in the next 4 years, we would like to see a 12% difference in our overall student achievement. So it's practical to achieve a 3% growth as a highly effective leader, to get to that 12% as a district in the next 4 years," a district presenter said.
The performance-pay model presented assigns 30% weight to student-success (goal 1), 20% to goals 2 and 3, and 15% each to goals 4 and 5. Board members asked for clarity on the composition of some indicators (for example, whether certain state assessments would be aggregated across grades) and discussed attendance thresholds; administrators said a 95% district attendance average is a ‘‘gold standard’’ and that schools with 95%+ attendance tend to show stronger student-growth results.
Board member Michael Owens moved to approve the superintendent goals and the performance-pay model for 2025–26; Michelle Wallace seconded. The vote was recorded as: Michelle Wallace — yes; Michael Mikes — yes; Michael Owens — yes; President Zaidema — yes. The motion passed unanimously.
Administrators said they will continue to align the superintendent evaluation instrument with the leader evaluation framework where practicable and will provide detailed rubrics and evidence lists for board review. The board requested additional documentation to demonstrate baseline data and past-year performance so that proposed percentage-point growth targets can be evaluated for attainability.
No changes to pay or contract terms were enacted at the meeting; approval was limited to goals and the performance-pay weighting model.
