Board debates thresholds in superintendent Mary Gore’s proposed goals and rubric

Superintendent Mary Gore brought a shortened, rubric-based draft of superintendent goals to the board for feedback, and trustees spent the meeting probing definitions of "effective" and whether baseline maintenance or measurable improvement should be required.

Gore said the goals were designed to be more specific and quantitative, and explained the logic of using MAP growth percentiles for evaluating system health: "Anything above 60, MAP designates as an effective system," she told the board when outlining how the rubric maps to growth metrics. Board members countered that using the district’s recent results as the baseline for an 'effective' rating risks accepting backsliding and urged targets that require improvement over last year rather than mere maintenance.

Trustees also questioned goal 3 (developing an educator pipeline) — whether the number of hosted pre‑service educators is an outcome or an indicator — and goal 4 (staff perceptions of consistent discipline), where the baseline staff‑survey figure (~63%) prompted calls to survey at different times of year (spring vs. fall) and for clearer outcome measures. Gore said she would return with historical data, suggested ways to contextualize measures, and offered to reframe or replace targets where board consensus calls for it.

Next steps: the superintendent evaluation committee will continue work (committee meeting July 29) to refine rubric language, select final goal metrics and decide whether to incorporate staff 360-style input or winter survey data into the evaluation process.