INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — School District Superintendent Dr. Mark Rendell will be evaluated differently from how he was reviewed over the last two years.
The school board recently added a year to his 3-year contract, extending it to July 2019, but vowed to change their grading method, matching Rendell’s report card to the district’s success.
The school board agreed his goals should match the 2012-2022 strategic plan, which was adopted about a month ago.
At the monthly superintendent’s workshop at 1 p.m. Tuesday, Rendell went over the strategic plan’s five goals and their measures of success. The school board must now redraft the superintendent’s scoring method, relating it to the new measures.
Goal one is student success. Among the many measures is graduation rate, which Rendell and the strategic plan aim to increase by 2 percent for each “subgroup,” including white, black and Hispanic students. Last school year, 90.7 percent of white students, 74.2 percent of black students and 85.6 percent of Hispanic students graduated.
A second measure is increasing the number of students who pass the Florida Standards Assessment by 5 percent, broken down by subgroup. The district has not released subgroup data for last school year. The pass rate for all students was 52 percent for English Language Arts and 53 percent for math.
A third measure is increasing the number of minority students participating in and succeeding in accelerated classes by 5 percent. Last year, 824 white students participated and 55 percent passed while 268 minority students participated and 54 percent passed.
Goal two is “Culture and Climate.” Among the many measures is reducing student discipline referrals by 3 percent. Last year, nearly 21 percent of students were referred to the office and nearly 7 percent were given out-of-school suspensions.
Goal three is “High Quality Workforce.” Among many measures is to create compensation and benefits packages that are “competitive with like-size or surrounding districts (within 2 percent).”
Increasing minority staff by 2 percent as well as new and existing employee retention by 2 percent are other measures among several.
Goal four is “School Community Relations.” Increasing the effectiveness of communication methods, such as tweets and Facebook posts, will be analyzed. More open house and town hall meetings will be held. Work product from subcommittees, such as the start time and instructional calendar committees, will be presented to the board, among other measures.
Goal five is “Strategic Partnerships.” Rendell aims to create “parent academies,” whose participation will be documented. Volunteerism by students will increase 2 percent. Baseline data of existing partnerships, such as The Learning Alliance, United Way, Big Brothers and Sisters, among others, will be established.
