Beaufort County results committee debates metrics, asks superintendent for completed evaluation cut

The Beaufort County Board of Education Results Committee met remotely Sept. 13, 2024, to review the superintendent'evaluation instrument and to decide which items need clarification before the evaluation is used for the 2024'25 cycle. Chair Colonel Gar opened the meeting, confirmed committee members Ingrid Boatwright, Carlton Dallas and Earl Campbell were present, and led the Pledge of Allegiance.

Committee members moved and approved the meeting agenda and the June 25, 2024 committee minutes by voice vote before beginning a page'by'page review of the instrument. The review began with governance and board relations and moved through community relations, media relations, staff relations and the budget-development boxes with no substantive edits recommended in those early sections.

The discussion turned to instructional leadership and the evaluation'tool's measurable components. Committee member Ingrid Boatwright asked staff to verify an explicit state-law citation the instrument claims it complies with, saying she could not locate the statute referenced and worried the wording might be a leftover from the Michigan model the instrument was adapted from. "I could not find the state law that we need to be in compliance with," Boatwright said, asking staff to either identify the law or remove the claim.

Dr. Rodriguez, who the committee asked to weigh in on the instrument, agreed that the evaluation system the state requires governs principal and assistant-principal evaluations and reiterated that some numeric results used in evaluations come from state reporting timelines that do not align with local evaluation deadlines. A committee member noted that final statewide assessment data is often released in October while teacher and principal evaluation forms are typically due around late June, making a direct, same-year cascade of student results to all employees impractical.

Attendance rates and other non-test proxies emerged as a repeated concern. Boatwright and others urged adding attendance metrics and other artifacts (for example, parental PowerSchool logins, college- and career-readiness markers and post-graduation employment) to give a fuller picture of district performance beyond single-occasion standardized tests. "Attendance is a big issue right now in the schools," Boatwright said, arguing attendance data is measurable and a current concern for parents.

Members also questioned several numbered cross-references in the instrument (examples cited as "3,5" or "1,4,6"), which participants said resemble links to sections on a Michigan superintendent-evaluation tool. The committee asked staff to forward the Michigan documents and to reconcile or remove inappropriate carryover references so the Beaufort County instrument is self'contained and locally accurate.

Board members debated the place and weight of the measurable student'achievement component (the instrument showed a 25% weighting). Some members, including Carlton Dallas, suggested increasing the weight on measurable achievement to better align accountability incentives, while others urged caution because state standards, test-release timing and demographic differences complicate direct comparisons. The so'called "75-75-92" aspirational target surfaced in the discussion as an example of a high-reaching goal: some members supported keeping such aspirational goals as part of oversight, while others recommended benchmarking only to demographically comparable districts rather than wealthy suburbs with very different student populations.

Several members urged that evaluation be coupled with a conversation between the superintendent and the board about annual goals and expectations so that measures are tied to agreed-upon targets. "Before the evaluation starts, there's a meeting with the person being evaluated and the evaluator," the chair said, suggesting the form should explicitly record annual goals and agreed expectations.

Next steps agreed by the committee were procedural: Dr. Rodriguez was asked to prepare his recommended completion ("cut") of the instrument reflecting the committee's discussion and to return the draft to the committee for further review. Members acknowledged timing constraints (the school year had already begun) and asked staff to check whether contract or notice requirements constrain when changes can be made effective.

By unanimous consent the chair adjourned the meeting; committee members thanked the chair and each other. The committee will reconvene after receiving Dr. Rodriguez's proposed version of the evaluation instrument.