Forest Grove board narrows focus for superintendent evaluation, asks for clear evidence cadence

The Forest Grove School District 15 board used a Sept. 24 work session to shape how it will evaluate first‑year Superintendent Dr. West, agreeing to focus the evaluation on a small set of standards and to require regular, board-accessible evidence tied to each standard.

Dr. West told the board she wanted the evaluation to be “specific, actionable, and meaningful,” and proposed co-creating two to four goals with performance indicators drawn from the OSBA evaluation handbook. She said evidence will be brought into the boardroom on a regular cadence — monthly reports and a more comprehensive midyear check-in — so board members can see how progress ties to each standard.

Board discussion centered on whether to adopt three standards to allow deeper focus on instruction or keep four to explicitly include communication and community engagement. Several board members argued community engagement is already captured in the district’s climate and culture surveys; others emphasized that bringing evidence into the boardroom would make those links explicit. One member summarized the choice as a trade-off between depth and breadth.

The board discussed practicalities of the evaluation process, including using a digital binder or shared drive to compile artifacts, and asked for rubrics that differentiate between ‘developing,’ ‘effective’ and ‘accomplished’ so members can identify the extra evidence needed to move a rating. Dr. West said she will present the compiled evidence package to the board on a recurring basis and that the evaluation documents will return at the first October meeting for formal action.

The next step is for staff to finalize the rubric language, list of acceptable artifacts and an evidence‑management plan so the board can adopt a final evaluation instrument at the October meeting.