Terry Grier says SUHSD principals not properly evaluated

I agree that school districts need to find a good way to evaluate principals. However, I suspect that the $250,000 the SDUSD board has authorized for this effort will be wasted on people who will simply look for ways to make it legal to continue making arbitrary personnel decisions. I used to have hope that Superintendent Terry Grier would be an agent of change, but his association with the Aspen Group International makes me think he's getting lazy and just wants his job to be easy.

Voice of San Diego
Seeking New Ways to Evaluate Principals
EMILY ALPERT
November 18, 2008

The San Diego Unified school board approved a proposal Tuesday night to hire an outside group to help craft evaluation criteria and procedures for school principals, despite complaints about its cost and objections from the principals association.

The proposal to craft new ways to evaluate principals gained more poignancy on the heels of a San Diego Unified report that found the district delinquent in evaluating its principals and administrators. Evaluating staffers has proved thorny in the past: San Diego Unified has twice fended off lawsuits in recent years about improper firings or evaluations of principals, said school board president Katherine Nakamura, who estimated that some administrators had not been evaluated in over a decade.

Superintendent Terry Grier attributed the problem to vague language in the school district agreement with principals that made it unclear how to evaluate principals without avoiding legal peril, and said those agreements need to be renegotiated. Grier said the $250,000 contract with a Colorado-based group would help solve the problem.

"In the long run, if you want us to hold principals accountable," Grier said, "... there has to be a different instrument."

Several stakeholders found the $250,000 contract objectionable in light of the budget crisis looming ahead for San Diego Unified. Administrators Association Executive Director Jeannie Steeg said that the amount was excessive, even though a new evaluation system was "desperately needed." Her comments were echoed by school board member Shelia Jackson, who called the proposal "irresponsible" and insulting to district staffers who Jackson believed could do the same work at a lesser expense...

[Blogger's note: District staffers clearly cannot do the job. Sadly, I don't think the people collecting $250,000 can do the job, either. What is needed is a change in culture.]

What teachers want

I agree with SDUSD's superintendent Terry Grier that teachers with more skills should be lured to poor-performing schools with higher pay. The California Teachers Association disagrees.

In today's edition of Voice of San Diego Emily Alpert writes:

"...[Superintendent] Grier has not broached the idea with the union, but he often includes articles about differential pay in his weekly updates to San Diego Unified staff. [Teachers union president Camile] Zombro called differential pay "an abhorrent idea" that doesn't address the real problem of "intolerable working conditions" at schools in low-income neighborhoods..."

Do good principals get fired?

Some school administrators are considering forming a union.
Voice of San Diego
By EMILY ALPERT
Jan. 15, 2008


...Under California's education code, managers have few rights, said Irvine attorney Bill Shaeffer.

Years ago, Shaeffer represented 15 San Diego principals and vice principals demoted by then-Superintendent Alan Bersin. Shaeffer won his case based on the district's long-standing MOU, not the Education Code...

"We have to threaten litigation after the harm is done..." [said Bruce McGirr, president-elect of the Administrator's Association.]

...in Barrio Logan, another principal was transferred, aggravating some parents and peers who thought the process unfair. Anna Cazares lost her job at Chavez Elementary, and was moved to Cabrillo Elementary. The transfer followed a series of disputes with Area Superintendent Delfino Aleman over issues ranging from the placement of a kindergarten student to whether to solicit student volunteers.

Karen Mashoof, a former counselor at Chavez, switched schools after Cazares left. Parent complaints against Cazares were "totally blown out of proportion," she complained, and Cazares was "a target."

...Chavez vice principal Karen Toyohara was also demoted. Toyohara said she was told the school's enrollment had dropped, eliminating her position...Toyohara was sent back to the classroom.

"Nobody honored our MOU," Toyohara said...