High Grades for Deasy

By Jorge Casuso

August 25 -- Superintendent John Deasy has passed the School Board's first evaluation of his performance with flying colors, achieving the four goals set for his initial year on the job.

The evaluation, completed during a closed session on Thursday, used a groundbreaking survey of the District's many stakeholders to assess Deasy's general performance and his achievement on four specific performance targets.

"I think the board was unanimously very pleased and very satisfied with John's performance for the last year," said Board President Julia Brownley. "I'm very excited about him, and those sentiments are consistent for the entire board."

"I think his performance is truly exceptional," said board member Jose Escarce. "We set goals or targets in four specific areas, and we set the bar really, really high on purpose so that it would be really hard to achieve."

On the four specific performance targets, which were chosen to focus the Superintendent's efforts on specific areas for improvement and established standards to encourage exceptional performance, the board's assessment was as follows:

Building instructional leadership capacity -- substantially achieved
Strategic planning -- completely achieved
Improving fiscal stewardship -- substantially achieved
Communications and central office -- substantially achieved

The evaluation began in June and culminated with a closed session that board members praised for its extensive and candid exchange.

"There was a tremendous amount of exchange," Escarce said. "One of the most remarkable things is his ability to take feedback and to use that to interpret his performance and think what should be the goals for next year and focus on achieving those.

"It's exciting, it really is very exciting," said Escarce, who is a researcher at RAND. "The process of the evaluation was remarkably rigorous and satisfying. He has done an exceptional job. He really has."

Based on the results of the evaluation, the board will decide at its next meeting how much of a raise Deasy will receive. The raise can be as much as ten percent, according to a performance-based clause in Deasy's $150,000 a year contract.