Superintendent Evaluation Discussions – April/March 2013
The below response was posted by School Board Director Purvine, in reply to a Charter Parent that lives in Gresham. He asked why she and another board member assigned all “zeros and ones” to the Superintendent on his most recent evaluation. ( They didn’t. )
If you are wondering how a parent would know about individual scores given to a Superintendent from an executive session held by a school board, it was because the Superintendent spent time at the next public board meeting, complaining about his scores in front of the board, parents, community and staff. ( Oddly enough, there was a very large turnout for this board meeting. They even changed the normal venue to accomodate a large crowd ….BEFORE the meeting. One patron stated on record that she received an anonymous email to attend and support CSD, and a lot of the CSD staff was in attendance, which is very unusual. ) In fact, at the previous board meeting, there were exactly 3 people in the audience.
The Superintendent shared out at this public meeting, that he was so upset about his scores from the school board ( which was a cumulative 3.392 out of 5, a score that means he met expectations ) that he got shingles and couldn’t attend the Corbett Boosters Red & Black event. He took this opportunity to call out “two board members” that gave him what he felt were unfair scores.
During the time the Superintendent spoke, there was clapping and cheering in his support from his staff and supporters. ( All the while our board chair allowed this. ) If you have ever attended a NORMAL board meeting in Corbett, you would know that any extra noise or comments will NOT be tolerated by our board Chair. Then again, most of us know we operate with a different set of rules in Corbett, and depending on who it is, no rules at all.
Clip about Ethics and the Superintendent
The interesting point about this first audio clip is that this is Randy Trani ( the Superintendent ) speaking to his belief that he did not deserve the scores assigned to him on the category of ETHICS. He states that if he heard someone received these types of low scores, he would think they should be fired. ( All the while, at this same time, Randy Trani was having an affair with a married staff member… ) Note that the following year, in 2014, the school board actually gave Randy higher marks on his evaluation, even AFTER the details of his affair were known. Details about when he admitted this affair to his staff can be read here….
Full Audio from this meeting
Director Purvine’s Response
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Sean,
Thank you for taking your time to come to the March Board meeting, I hope that the next time you come to a meeting you would please come up and introduce yourself. I try to meet the “new faces” I see at our meetings, but the opportunity did not present itself at that meeting.
I would like to address the Superintendent’s evaluation process as that appears to be your main concern.
The Superintendent can receive scores of 0-5, with 0 being “Not observed” and 5 being “Exceptional achievement”. When a board member gave a score of 0 on a category, that category dropped from an average of 7 people, to 6 people, so the Superintendent’s score was not affected by a 0. If there were three or more board members who gave a ranking of 0 on a line item, that line item was completely tossed and did not go into the overall evaluation score. A score of 0 was “neutral” and did not affect the overall evaluation.
The Superintendent’s evaluation is based on an average score, and it was explained to me during training conferences, that the reason behind this is because you are going to have board members who agree with how things are going, and board members who are not. That is why the only number that is put in the Superintendent’s file is the Overall Average score. That is the only one that counts on their permanent record, that is the only one that is to be released to the public. Dr. Trani did not receive a zero on his professional score, he received a 3.392, a score that means he “meets expectations”.
It is suggested by OSBA that the board meets once a quarter in executive session to discuss how individual board members view the Superintendent’s progress in different areas. The idea behind this is so the Superintendent is not surprised by the evaluation they get at the end of the year, but receive direction during the year on where strengths and weakness are seen. It is unfortunate that our board does not do this, but I have brought it up in past meetings and was told that Dr. Trani tells us how he is doing each month, so we did not need to meet. Is this meeting something I would like to see us do? Yes it is. Hopefully it is a practice we can change in the future.
The only thing I can say regarding your impression on the scores that I gave the Superintendent is that it is incorrect. I do understand it was the impression a lot of people were left with, and for that I am sorry.
I would also like to thank you for understanding that I was only voting against the extension of the contract. Most people do not appear to be aware of the fact we have a three year rolling contract and that we extend the contract each year without allowing the original to timeout. My feeling on this is we should allow the contract to run its course and renegotiate at the appropriate time, or put a No Specific Cause clause into the contract for balance, as other districts do who have rolling contracts. I would have no problem voting to continue the rolling contract should we agree to add this item.
As for disagreeing with the Superintendent, I have been hearing this a lot lately and I’m not sure what we are supposed to be disagreeing on. What I can tell you is what I want to see happen in our District. Here are the top four:
1. All students getting the individual attention they need from a teacher or instructional aide to be as successful as they can be. (Yes, I know funding is an issue, but this is what I would like to see!)
2. Options open to all students to choose the educational path they would like to go down. (40-40-20 is now out there, and its a good thing! My student attends Mt. Hood Community college right now through the Gresham/Barlow web academy. He is getting his Senior year credits, while also getting his College credits. I have asked Dr. Trani during a Facilities Use meeting if we can implement a program like this for Corbett students and he was not open to the idea at the time, but maybe this is something we can re-visit Also, I was approached by an Administrator at the Springdale Job Corp wondering if we would be interested in teaming with them to provide more opportunities to students on both campuses. I told her I would be happy to sit down with her and meet with the Superintendent when she was ready to see if this was something we could do that could help all students. How great would it be to open up more opportunities for the students and families who attend our District!)
3. Secure environment for all students, teachers, staff, administration and community members. (There was a lot of concern following the school shootings about a School resource officer. The cost was presented by the administration to the board members as being around $125,000 for an officer and seen as something the school could not afford. I have been talking with various members of the Multnomah County Sheriff Department regarding this since the shootings, and met with Sheriff Dan Staton last week regarding how we can work together and make this affordable. His finance manager also attended the meeting and it looks like the cost is closer to $150,000 but with some work may be brought down to about 1/3 of that for the school to have to pay. The Sheriff’s Department would like to see another officer up in this area, the Forest Service is asking for assistance up here and could help with some of the cost over the summer and the Sheriff is wanting to work with Commissioner Diane McKeel and Chair Jeff Cogan to make this happen for Corbett School District. Sheriff Staton said he has also received a call from Superintendent Trani about this and will be meeting with him this coming week. My goal was to be able to present a number the school could afford during a presentation by the Sheriff’s department, now it looks like we might be able to get the numbers pinned down before the upcoming budget meeting 
4. Safe environment for all students, staff, teachers, administration and community members.(Let’s face it, there is more bullying being done then when we went to school. Why? Because there are more opportunities for it to happen. Cyberbullying, physical bullying, name calling, face-booking and so on. Rachel’s Challenge has come up in past board meetings, how great would it be to take that plan and run with it.
Here is something done by the student’s at North Gresham Grade school that I shared on My facebook page:
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Students at North Gresham Grade School started their Wednesday with the school’s weekly assembly. But when a group of students took off their coats to reveal pink anti-bullying T-shirts, everyone knew the message for the day. Fourth grade student Hannah Anderson spoke to her fellow students at the assembly to tell them she’d been bullied in the past. She said that was a lot harder than confronting a bully. “A lot of my friends get bullied and I try to help them, and so I’m not really afraid of that,” she said. Fifth grader Khemren Pruganan also has experience with bullies. “I’ve seen somebody calling somebody names,” Purganan said. “So I told them to stop and they didn’t stop, so I told a teacher. “Hurting someone or hurting their feelings and making them, like, sad is just not good good.”The idea of a day-long educational event was the brainchild of parent and volunteer Denise McCloud. She’s lived in Canada, where schools everywhere spend the final Wednesday in February focusing on the issue.
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If you believe that the Superintendent and I disagree on any of these items please let me know.
Victoria Purvine
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To see the original question and response you can select here and scroll to the bottom of that page.
