MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The Memphis Shelby County School Board evaluation committee is now waiting on superintendent Dr. Marie Feagins to return her version of an evaluation rubric that she thinks is fair, following letters from two former board members claiming that she is taking the district in the wrong direction.
Board members said that out of fairness to Dr. Feagins, they needed to rework their evaluation grading system and metrics based on the letters sent less than two weeks ago. However, they did say comments like those will likely impact how they evaluate her, particularly regarding the relations part of the rubric.
MSCS board members recently submitted the mid-year evaluation rubric proposal for the superintendent. Dr. Feagins must agree to the metrics before they use them to determine how she has done since becoming the head of MSCS in April.
"Right now, we're waiting for the superintendent to give us feedback from the evaluation process, the instrument tool we agreed upon last week," said Sable Otey, an MSCS board member.
That evaluation will be broken into two parts: the first is a rubric that scales on metrics, including governance and board relations, community relations, and business and finance. Student achievement is the largest scale, coming in at 25%. For the second part, Feagins' contract stipulates that she can provide data about how she is positively leading the district.
"Once we come up with the tool collectively and the subjective sort of process metrics, and then we added what her district priorities were regarding how we set the budget for this particular fiscal year that will provide our quantitative measures," said Natalie McKinney, an MSCS board member.
In late September, former board chair Althea Greene and former board member Mauricio Calvo drafted letters with concerns about Feagins' leadership. They cited a lack of communication and accountability. Current board members say they will consider this as they evaluate her performance.
"We just want to make sure everything is running smoothly because we have to work in excellence, and in order to work in excellence, we've got to move accordingly." MSCS board member Towanna Murphy said.
Feagins has another week to provide her notes on the rubric, and once the board agrees, the mid-term evaluation must be submitted by the last MSCS board meeting at the end of this month. This will guide them in understanding where any corrective action needs to be made before her end-of-year evaluation is conducted by May 1.