Just to refresh somebody's memory ...

Ms. Linehan claimed last night that she did two evaluations of the Superintendent last year.  She knows this is nonsense.  There was one review done and both her and Ms. Marshall refused to make any written contribution to it, or verbally supply any specific reasons for their scores.  The review was concluded during a public televised session on April 28, when member comments were read aloud, and every member was given the opportunity to make additional comments as they felt appropriate.  Neither Marshall, nor Linehan made any additional specific comments at that time which had not been previously incorporated into the written document.

The below memo was previously appended to the minutes of the April 7, 2010 Executive Session minutes.  Copies were also previously supplied both to School Committee Counsel and the District Attorney's Office.

Addendum to 4/7/2010 Executive Session Minutes

Jessica Linehan submitted a pre-printed statement for inclusion in the minutes of the 4/7 Executive Session before she left the meeting for the evening.  This statement is intended to respond to and clarify that statement.

At the beginning of the review process, I requested that all members submit written comments to me for inclusion in the consolidated review document via email.  I noted that the use of email is not prohibited for such purposes if these comments were to be delivered solely to me for inclusion in the consolidated document and were not to be circulated to other members.  Ms. Linehan chose not to submit any written comments for the document.

This draft document was discussed in Executive Session on September 9 but was NOT completed or voted upon by the Committee because a consensus was reached that the evaluation date would change to March 31 for two reasons:

(1)   The use of a review period ending on June 30 meant that new committee members with as little as 6 weeks of experience would be evaluating the Superintendent.

(2)   The March 31 date more closely approximated the June 30 contract end date.  This would allow the contract terms to more closely correspond with actual evaluation results.

On March 17, a discussion draft of the prior incomplete evaluation document was distributed to members for review and discussion at the next meeting.  There was no discussion of the contents of the document.  This working draft had been marked up only to serve as the starting point of contract discussions.

The Chair did NOT arbitrarily inform the Committee that the evaluation date had been changed – the Committee had agreed to that previously, as had the Superintendent.

Any performance-related discussions were inextricably linked to discussions of the Superintendent’s employment contract, which is an allowed use of Executive Session.  I would also note that the employee evaluation form itself is not a public record.

A public discussion of the Superintendent’s evaluation is scheduled for 4/28, concurrent with discussion of the extension of the Superintendent’s contract.

RFS

PLEASE -- Before you say "The meeting was invalid and so was the contract, blah, blah, blah ..." -- Please click here for one more explanation. as to why you may be wrong.