Aliyya Swaby Photo
Harp, at left, voted yes. Dawson, at right, voted no.
After more than three hours deliberating in executive session, the Board of Education rated Superintendent Garth Harries “effective” at his job and voted to extend his contract another year — despite calls from members of the public to wait to vote until newly elected members join in January.
At Monday’s board meeting at Martinez School, Harries received an average score of 3.06 out of 5 in his performance evaluation, forming a downward trend since his first evaluation put him at 3.5 in February 2014.
The board voted, with just two no votes, to have its chair, Mayor Toni Harp, negotiate the terms of the one-year contract extension with Harries, which would end June 30, 2018.
“This was one of the most difficult decisions any of us has ever made,” said board member Carlos Torre. “It was one of the most honest I’ve been involved with.”
Harries’ second evaluation — which got him a 3.25 rating — in June 2015 was the first time he had been evaluated over the course of a full year since he first took the job in 2013.
The board also bid farewell Monday evening to members Alex Johnston and Susan Samuels, whose terms end this month — before two new elected members Edward Joyner and Darnell Goldson take their seats in January.
Board members employed the same rating system used to evaluate the district’s administrators and teachers, with a scale of 1 to 5 for each performance area. Those areas are: student impact; collaboration and engagement; transparency, access and equity; and vision and leadership.
Harries received a score of either 3 or 3.25 for all four areas, with 3 meaning “effective,” a 4 meaning “strong” and a 5 meaning “exemplary.”
Click here to see the report.
The evaluation juxtaposes the superintendent’s self-evaluation for each area along with the board’s rating and commentary. Both mentioned the increase in graduation and college persistence rates as signs of effective leadership.
Despite those gains, the report states, “we cannot be satisfied given the tremendous ground that must be gained on the SBAC. Similarly, SAT assessment results provide a sobering view of the level of academic achievement and college preparation. You must redouble efforts to accelerate student progress overall through the implementation of School Reform 2.0.10.”
Johnston and Harries at Monday night’s session.
Harries agreed in his self-evaluation that the results on the Common Core-aligned Smarter Balanced exam were “unacceptable.” He argued he has “used the results as a call to action in support of our students — whatever limitations the tests have, they still underscore the needs of our students.”
The report praised Harries for proactively reorganizing his leadership team to align with reform goals, “engaging with students,” keeping the budget in line and making “positive strides” in terms of “customer service” and “responsiveness” to board members.
It noted room for improvement in clarifying how he intends to spur student achievement “in practical terms,” called for faster decision-making processes, and asked that he work to resolve longstanding conflict between the teachers and administrators unions.
Student Members Shut Out
Non-voting student board members Kimberly Sullivan and Coral Ortiz were not allowed to participate in the executive session. They spoke with Torre and Johnston before the meeting to relay their comments.
Sullivan said at the meeting that student members should have been able to see the superintendent’s self-evaluation before they made their comments, a chance all other board members had.
“We shouldn’t be asked to have equal say if we don’t have equal knowledge,” she said. Torre and Johnston said they could have done better informing the student members during the process, while following the board’s bylaws on how to involve non-voting members.
After a board vote, Mayor Harp will negotiate a one-year extension of Harries’ contract to June 30, 2018. Board members Che Dawson and Alicia Caraballo voted against the extension. Dawson declined to comment on his reason. Caraballo said she felt it was too soon to renew the contract.
“I just wanted more time and more evidence to see in terms of some of the areas of concerns I have around leadership and management and communication and so on. I didn’t feel comfortable in adding another year to his contract and really just wanted to focus the year and a half in seeing some improvements in these areas and then making a decision whether we were going to extend his contract,” she told the Independent after the meeting.
The board also voted to amend the contract so the consideration of an annual extension would take place in November and would have to be decided by December. It voted to change the timing of the annual evaluation cycle to start in September, so “we’re at a synchronized evaluation process,” Johnston said.
Teachers’ Request Ignored
The New Haven Educators’ Collective, an activist teacher group, collected 260 signatures on a petition asking the board to defer the vote until January 2016. “In recognition of this progress toward a more democratic Board of Education, and out of respect for the newly elected members, we believe that no critical decisions should be made prior to the inauguration of our two new elected members,” the petition reads.
Harries said it was appropriate for the board that hired him and first evaluated him to make the decision on his contract extension.
“The point is not to politicize. The point is to have a Board of Education actively involved in the evaluation,” he said. The new members will be “involved in the goal-setting and in the evaluation going forward.”
Harries presented Samuels and Johnston with framed student artwork as thanks for their time served on the board.
Mayor Harp said she “respects” Samuels’ work and learned a lot from her. She said Johnston, founder of the pro-charter group ConnCAN, never used his position to promote “some things that are very controversial,” but rather used his talent to help district students, she noted.
Starting in January, board meetings will take place at L.W. Beecher School at 100 Jewell St.
So the Superintendent is not considered to be even near "strong" in any aspect of his job and is trending negatively in his evaluations, but yet the Board can't wait three weeks to give him an extension for two years from now?
A disgraceful move by the Board. I hope the new members do the right thing and make him accountable for this sham.
Just yesterday we learned that he is holding 126 empty seats at the city's choice schools so that he can please suburban parents. To worry about suburban kids over the best interests of those who live in the city is despicable.
What a board of ignorance. Stir it up, Ed.