Superintendents Now Goal-Oriented

It's a known fact that in Pennsylvania, school superintendents are generally the highest paid

Sparagana

employees of a public school district.

That's not so surprising when you consider that they are, in essence, the CEO's of organizations with multi-million-dollar budgets.

But until this year, it was generally up to an individual school board to exercise oversight.

Performance reviews and goal-setting has been spotty at best.

But things have changed.

According to this Feb. 4 report in The Times-Tribune of Scranton: "Part of the state budget enacted for 2012-13 called for the evaluations of school superintendents. Boards and superintendents are required to develop performance standards, and those standards are to be posted on the district's website. After the superintendent is evaluated, the district must post on its website whether the superintendent met the performance standards."

Which means that Pottstown Schools Superintendent Jeff Sparagana will be evaluated based on his and the district's performance in achieving a set of goals, which were adopted at the Aug. 19 school board meeting.

I have uploaded the full list of those goals to Document Cloud and you can click here to read them all.

The goals are divided into categories which include: continuous improvement planning, curriculum development, instruction, community, district operations, fiscal management, project oversight and school safety.

For those of you who don't want to read the six-page list, here is a sampling:

• Aligning curriculum with "PA Common Core Standards;"
• PSD makes Adequate Yearly Progress under the federal No Child Left Behind guidelines;
• Promoting a system within the district "that seeks to engage each member of the district community, promotes, enhances and sustains a shared vision, positive school climate and ensures family and support for student participation in the learning process;
• Common email, global connect, text messaging and E-alert system in all schools;
• Effective and efficient use of the district web site to communication information and issues regarding district operations to the school board and community;

There are several categories related to re-districting and the construction projects, the closing of Edgewood.

Another goal is to craft a budget "that maintains all programming and provides for redistricting."

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On another subject, the school board also re-appointed Stephen Kalis as district solicitor.

He will be paid $185 per hour, a rate that has remained unchanged for the last four years he has held the post.