For school year 2011-2012, Superintendent Kishimoto submitted her self-evaluation in July 2012. At the end of the following September, the Board of Education submitted its evaluation of her performance. There were grumblings of disagreement with her evaluation but the Superintendent of Hartford Public Schools vowed to take steps toward improving her communication with the school board.
It’s October, yet no evaluation of Kishimoto has been conducted for the 2012-2013 school year. After Real Hartford filed a Freedom of Information Act request, Suhail Aponte — part of the Board of Education’s Office of Labor & Legal Services — said that “there is no written evaluation document […] at this time.”
Individual evaluations of Kishimoto by board members were originally scheduled to be due in mid-September 2013.
In mid-June 2013 the Board of Education rejected Kishimoto’s request for a contract extension — a 7-0 vote — yet her current employment term does not expire until the end of June 2014. Far from being a situation where she is hustled out of her office in a matter of minutes by security in the middle of a school year, Kishimoto has had a full year’s notice of her looming loss of employment She continues to hold a position where she makes decisions.
The Connecticut General Statutes Section 10-157 outlines the relationship of public school superintendents in Connecticut with local or regional boards of education. This section includes language suggesting an obligation on part of the school board to evaluate the superintendent: “ The board of education shall evaluate the performance of the superintendent annually in accordance with guidelines and criteria mutually determined and agreed to by such board and such superintendent.”
The legalese is fuzzy and open to interpretation there, but within Kishimoto’s evaluation for school year 2011-2012 it is plainly stated that “District Policy 2140 and the Connecticut General Statutes 10-157 require an annual evaluation of the Superintendent.”
The Hartford Board of Education’s own document states:
The overall intent of the evaluation process is to:
- Contribute to the harmonious working relationship between the Board and the Superintendent.
- Clarify the role of the Superintendent and the Board for all members.
- Inform the Superintendent of strengths and of areas of concern.
- Provide an understanding of the differences in ideas and expectations of individual board members.
- Provide the highest quality and effective leadership for the school district.
- Promote the professional development and growth of the Superintendent
Not conducting evaluations of an employee’s performance for half of her term sends the message that there is no reason to promote her growth as a leader, even though she remains in a position of power through the end of this school year.
It raises questions about why a board and superintendent would willingly give the public the impression that transparency and accountability are not shared virtues.
