Rapid City Area School District board gets SuperEval demonstration for superintendent and CFO reviews

At a study session, Rapid City Area School District 51-4 board members received a live demonstration of SuperEval, a cloud-based evaluation tool the district will use to structure reviews of the superintendent and chief financial officer, Rob Seidelman of SuperEval told the board.

The demonstration explained how board members will log in at supereval.com, complete individual reviews and either prepopulate their responses with the superintendent’s self-evaluation or enter independent ratings. "What you're going to do is go to supereval.com," Seidelman said, walking members through the login and workflow. He showed how a board president would move the process into a consolidated view and how individual responses feed into an automated consolidation.

Why it matters: the platform standardizes how the district collects written feedback and numerical ratings from multiple board members, provides an audit trail of comments and timestamps, and creates a single consolidated review that the board will present to district leadership. Board members said they expect the tool to create more consistent, year-to-year evaluation practices.

During the session, Superintendent Dr. Strasser framed the change as a move toward a more structured process. "We are working with SuperEval," he said, noting the tool will support a “very thorough, proper evaluation process.” Seidelman recommended that, as a best practice, board members prepopulate with the superintendent’s self-rating so they can see where the superintendent and CFO rated themselves, then make any necessary deviations.

Board members asked about how consolidation and discussion would occur. Christine Stephenson asked whether the consolidation would be done in executive session. Seidelman replied that the platform automates compilation but that the consolidated review is typically reviewed in person in executive session: "As soon as you, as board president, mark this complete, it goes to the consolidated view," he said, and the board may then edit or refine a single statement for presentation.

Members raised a few logistical issues during the hands-on portion. Katie Urban reported she and others initially could not see the "board self evaluation" dropdown; Seidelman offered to resolve account and access problems on the spot. Seidelman also left contact information for follow-up and said his team would help boards and district staff with account setup.

The board did not vote on adopting the platform during the session; Seidelman and district leaders indicated further training and scheduling decisions will follow. The board discussed setting a timeline for completing the evaluations and aligning evaluation deadlines with strategic-planning milestones.

Next steps noted during the meeting included addressing remaining account-access problems for some members, scheduling additional training (the presenter estimated about 30 minutes for a fuller board-self-evaluation walkthrough), and clarifying whether in-house counsel or staff will assist in producing the final consolidated review the board will present to the superintendent and CFO.