The Waltham School Committee held a special meeting last night, Aug. 6th, to present the evaluation of the Superintendent, Dr. Susan Nicholson, among other action items. All members were present, as well as myself and three other members of the public and two members of the media.
This is the first year that Waltham is using this particular evaluation tool, one mandated by the Department of Education, so it was new to everyone. The overall result of the review of Dr. Nicholson resulted in a rating of Proficient. This is on a scale of four options, including Not Satisfactory, Making Progress, Proficient and Excels (I may not have the exact wording for each option, but the general sense is accurate). She was rated on four goals that had been established for the year, and each goal was rated on a scale of Not Met, Making Progress, Met, and Exceeds. She received a rating of Exceeds on one goal, and Met on the other three.
Comments that were read at the end of the evaluation suggested Dr. Nicholson is well liked and respected by her coworkers and staff, and is doing a good job overall with moving the district forward and making good progress on student outcomes. Among the items suggested for improvement were working on conflict resolution and focusing on the positives within the district as well as the negatives.
Dr. Nicholson questioned one of the Met ratings on her goal of 70% of all 2nd graders reading at or above grade level. The actual number came out at 72%. She felt that warranted an Exceeds rating. Robert Cincotta responded that as he was working through how to rate that goal, he asked himself what he would rate her if the result had been 68%. He felt that a variance of 2% in either direction still warranted a Met rating. Susan Burstein added that this was the one goal which she did not have direct control over. The teaching staff and the students impacted the end result and as such, it seemed fair to consider it having been met. There was a suggestion that in the future if a goal like this was being established, using a range instead of a hard number would make more sense.
So the end result was a good evaluation with an overall rating of Proficient for the Superintendent.
The meeting did not end there though. The committee went on to discuss what, if anything, the subcommittee looking at redistricting, for the lack of a better word, should be doing. After much discussion, the committee agreed that until the enrollment data for this fall is in, and Dr. Nicholson can get three years of data analysed, and the consultant who is going to be hired to look at our facility use and enrollment information is on board, the only thing that really can be done is to get to the Mayor the data she needs for the RFI that will be issued as part of the consultant hiring process. All other discussions around redistricting, including whether moving students around should happen by geography or based on programs (ELL, Special Education and Pre K) should not be ongoing at this time.
The next item was a motion to move the school committee more into the electronic age, and begin disseminating items for the meetings electronically instead of hard copy. Currently the administrative assistance spends 4-5 hours preparing materials and delivering them to the members. Going electronic would cut that time in half, and save trees and other resources. As part of this motion the Superintendent will research and identify electronic devices, such as an iPad, that would be purchased for the school committee members so they may access these items easily and use during meetings. A request for training on using whatever device is provided was requested and approved. This will go into action for the next meeting.
This discussion was followed by Lisa Limonciello making a motion to put an item on the agenda under new business. There was a brief discussion regarding if this was allowable in a special meeting but ultimately it was approved. The item was to ask about a meeting that will happen between the Mayor and any interested parents from the Fitzgerald Elementary school. The intial question was why was this meeting happening, and was followed up with a discussion regarding whether it was appropriate for the Mayor, as a member of the school committee to take such a meeting.
The Mayor explained that this meeting came out of a concern on her part that she had been hearing rumblings in social media, and from contact from parents to her directly that suggested there were "issues" at Fitzgerald. In her role as Mayor, she feels it is her duty to find out if there is a problem at a school, consequently she reached out to a parent and eventually asked if the parents would like to have a meeting. When pressed on what the topic of the meeting would be, the Mayor indicated she didn't know for sure, but she ultimately indicated the parents feel disenfranchised and she would like to better understand this.
Things got a little heated when Robert Cincotta indicated that he felt it was inappropriate for her to have this meeting. Both he and others felt that protocol and policy within the school committee would have parents go to the Superintendent before an issue is addressed by any other member of the committee or by the committee as a whole. The Mayor replied that it is her duty as Mayor to understand what is going on at any school if there is a perception there is a problem, and then stated that previously Mr. Cincotta had told her he feels it is inappropriate for her to respond to and interact with parents who reach out to her, but that it is OK for him to do so. Mr. Cincotta rejected that statement outright. When the Mayor persisted in stating this he demanded that she stop lying and eventually left the meeting. The issue continued to be discussed, with both Ms. Burstein and Ms. Limonciello stating that their concern was that A) parents who have issues first try to bring the issue to the Superintendent, and B) no member of the school committee discuss the performance of any employee of the school district in public with anyone. The Mayor responded that she had asked if the parents had reached out to Dr. Nicholson and that the response was yes, so she felt that issue had been addressed. She also stated she had no intention of discussing the performance of any individual including the Superintendent with this group of parents, but was concerned about issues around process.
Dr. Nicholson stated she was aware of an email that went from the Fitzgerald PTO to the parents regarding this meeting and that it was specifically relating to the Superintendent. She has no interest in having to defend herself in public, nor would that be appropriate. The Mayor again stated she would be having this meeting, which any member of the public and the school committee would be welcome to attend, to find out what the issues are.
Margaret Donnelly brought the discussion to a close by suggesting that part of the problem might come from the fact that in previous meetings parents had been told that they should not reach out directly to the school committee if they had questions or concerns, and thus there might be the perception that the school committee as a whole is not open to hearing issues. She suggested that while that had been corrected, if there is any question of the public feeling comfortable sharing concerns, if there are questions of transparency, that falls to the school committee to resolve.
The remaining items were standard items and then I left.
My impression of the meeting overall is that the Superintendent is viewed as doing a good job and moving the district forward in a positive manner. It was also clear that there are some concerns around the meeting with the Fitzgerald parents. It would be my expectation that the Mayor acts in accordance with school committee protocol and policies, while also doing her due diligence with her constituents. That is the job of Mayor after all. This speaks loudly to some existing issues at the parent level, concern about the turnover of staff, specifically principals and is obviously something Dr. Nicholson should be adding to her list of objectives for the coming year. Being Superintendent is a very hard job, and no one will ever make everyone happy. It is impossible. But if parents feel they are not being listened to, if they feel disenfranchised, there are probably steps that can be taken to address THAT issue. It also became apparent that members of the school committee had not been aware of the previous meeting the Superintendent held with the Fiztgerald parents regarding the hiring process of a new principal, which may be why none of them were present at the meeting. Add this to the fact that apparently the teaching staff at Fitzgerald did not get the message regarding the Superintendent also holding a meeting for them, and so none of them showed up for it, I would also suggest that communication might be something that needs to be focused on.
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