Memphis school board members want to measure more accurately the accomplishments and failures of the superintendent of Shelby County Schools.
Currently, school board members rate Superintendent Dorsey Hopson’s job performance on a scale of 1 to 5 in several categories, including student achievement, facilities and finance, and relationships with staff, the board, and the community. But those categories don’t include specific benchmarks board members expect him to meet.
As the district strives to meet its goal for 2025 to prepare students for beyond high school, effectively evaluating those at the top will become more critical, said Peter Gorman, a former Charlotte superintendent who is working with the district and school board to improve the process. Board members are lining up the superintendent’s evaluation measurements with the district’s updated academic plan.
“We have a lack of quantifiable measures within the tool that we’re using,” said board member Kevin Woods. “There are, internal to the district, already measures that have been outlined in the academic plan… and it’s already what the superintendent is holding himself and his staff accountable for.”
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Gorman plans to work with Hopson’s team to recommend data points the board could include in the new evaluation. Board chair Shante Avant, evaluation committee chairman Scott McCormick, and board vice chair Stephanie Love will lead the effort to craft a new evaluation that would take effect next year.
Board members also hope to add a “constituent services” component to make sure his staff is being more responsive to the public.
“This benefits everyone. This increases performance,” he told board members Tuesday. “There’s got to be this alignment piece that it trickles all the way through the organization.”
This would not be the first time the board changed the process for evaluating Hopson. The school board has rated Hopson as satisfactory, though not exemplary, in recent years and last year extended his contract to 2020 with a $16,000 raise. In 2015, his evaluation score dipped after reducing the number of categories board members examined.
Hopson has led Tennessee’s largest school system for five years and overseen a tumultuous time for the district. In 2013, the city’s school district folded into the county system, a complicated logistical feat that still reverberates today. The following year, six suburban towns split off to create their own districts with about 34,000 students. At the same time, the state-run Achievement School District grew as it took over district schools that had chronic low performance on state tests. Nearly two dozen district schools closed during that time as Hopson and his staff rushed to fill budget deficits left in the wake of all the changes and reductions in student enrollment.
Despite the strenuous circumstances, fewer schools are on the state’s list of lowest performing schools and the district’s Innovation Zone has boosted test scores at a faster rate than the state’s district. Schools across the state are looking to strategies in Memphis to improve schools — a far cry from six years ago. And recently, Hopson was among nine finalists for a national award recognizing urban district leaders.
Hopson’s evaluation for last school year is expected to be presented at the board’s work session Tuesday, Nov. 27.
Board members also briefly acknowledged it has been three years since the panel has done a self-evaluation to make sure they are doing what they need to do to govern well.