Trustees discuss processes for board assessments 

Trustees met Tuesday for a special board session during which they discussed processes for self-assessments as well as the 2023-24 school year performance evaluation for Superintendent Susan Enfield. 

It was determined that trustees are connecting well with the community and lead balanced meetings. But the board could improve on how trustees engage with each other and should focus more on student learning agenda items, the assessments showed. 

There are three evaluation “frames” for self assessments: Governance Standards and Indicators, Individual Trustee Practices and Board Meeting Practices, according to Thomas Alsbury, president of Balanced Governance Solutions (BGS) who led the presentation. 

BGS compiled a comprehensive board observation and evaluation report based on 14 meetings. It found that the strengths observed by the board included average meeting time, the number of topics covered each meeting and a general balance of meeting categories. 

“How you balance presentations, recognitions versus business is very very well balanced, right up there with [other] highly effective boards,” Alsbury said. 

Alsbury said that, out of the 14 meetings analyzed, topics regarding student learning and monitoring strategic goals took up only 34.9 percent of discussions. 

The rest of reviewed discussions were still on important topics, but were “supportive” such as safety and discipline.  

Percentages have increased since Enfield took over as superintendent, however, with only 7% of topics during 2022 dealt with student learning, up to 56% in 2023. 

Topics regarding student learning should take up approximately 70% of discussions, according to Alsbury. 

“The superintendent is already moving topics more towards monitoring strategic plans,” Alsbury said. 

Enfield said that while her “fresh eyes” to the board is a help, it also comes down to the leadership of board President Beth Smith and Vice President Diane Nicolet who have been setting the agendas with more “focus and intention.” 

Alsbury said another area for growth is actively engaging in “bonding and bridging” and staying away from comments that are negative towards other board members. 

“Anti-bonding is when you’re making remarks that tear down your trust in one another, and your ability to work with one another,” Alsbury said. “That’s the mark of a board heading in the wrong direction, and  you want to avoid that.” 

Across the 14 meetings surveyed, a total of 18 “anti-bonding” and 7 “anti-bridging” incidents were recorded. In comparison, 41 bonding and 40 bridging incidents were recorded as well. 

The assessment also found that some board members were commenting far more than others, while at least one was speaking far below average. 

Two members, which were designated only by a number, had over 60 comments on average per meeting. One member spoke an average of only seven times per meeting. 

An average number of comments members should be shooting for, according to Alsbury, is around 30. 

“You can talk too much, and you can also not talk enough,” he said. “If you’re dominating a meeting with your meeting, other trustees don’t want to jump in and give their viewpoint from their constituents as the conversation goes on and on and on. That can be dangerous because they have constituents that want to hear from them.” 

Superintendent evaluation

Trustees also discussed the annual superintendent evaluation for Enfield. 

The Tuesday meeting dealt with decisions on focus performance indicators, and the next meeting will be held Jan. 2024 to hold a mid-year performance review and revision. 

Trustees were given a list of indicators to review and were asked to choose one indicator that they found to be the most important. 

No more than eight indicators were suggested by Alsbury to be used to measure the superintendent’s work. 

Supervisors chose things such as student success, making schools accessible to families and community members, safety within schools, increasing time for teachers to prepare and improving staff recruitment and retention. 

The indicators were agreed upon unanimously. The full list can be viewed here. 

Following direction from the trustees, Alsbury will take the indicators selected and create a tool for measurements and data collection for future evaluations.