The District 97 Board of Education and administrative staff were both confused and dismayed by your recent editorial [Keep principals accountable, Our Views, Dec. 6], in which you state that you were “taken aback and more than a little disappointed to discover that principal goals have yet to be submitted and assessed.” This is a huge misstatement, and we believe we need to set the record straight for the families we serve.
At no time in the history of Dist. 97 has there been more accountability for principal and administrator performance. I’ll focus on the principals here since they were singled out in your commentary.
First, principal goals are written into their contracts, and their evaluations are tied to the achievement of those goals. I meet with each principal individually at the beginning of the school year to go over their goals and outline objectives, indicators of success, and time-lines. We are finishing a second round of individual meetings which began in December, with another meeting scheduled in February before a final meeting and evaluation in May.
Second, we meet as an administrative team bi-monthly to talk about student achievement and each principal’s challenges and successes toward achieving their goals. These meetings are collaborative problem-solving sessions in which we examine every aspect of teaching and learning.
Third, each school has a School Improvement Team of parents and staff that supports school improvement efforts around principals’ goals. The tri-chairs of each team, one of which is the principal, engaged this August in a comprehensive training on how to implement, monitor, and adjust school improvement efforts.
Fourth, we have a district-wide climate survey for students, staff and parents. Questions in that survey relate directly to principal leadership at the school and are incorporated into the evaluation process.
I challenge you to find a district with more accountability in terms of monitoring administrative and principal goals than here in Dist. 97. The principals’ and administrators’ work is my work, and my work is the work of the board of education. All of our work is intertwined, all of our work is closely monitored, all of our work has the success of all students at its core.
At a time when we continue to ask our administrative team to do more with less, and the team is rising to the challenge and making great progress, a misstatement such as this one needs to be acknowledged and the record needs to be set straight. Thank you for this opportunity to repair the misconceptions you may have caused.
Connie Collins
Superintendent, District 97
Wednesday Journal apologizes for our confusion.