Dr. Pedro Garcia, director of Metro Nashville Public Schools, received mostly failing grades in meeting the district’s annual objectives, according to a report done for the board by the Tennessee School Boards Association.
The evaluation was given to board members in a brief Saturday morning meeting originally called to review the information. That situation changed Friday when the board met in a hastily called closed session to review a proposal by Garcia to terminate his contract. The board considered the offer and agreed to meet again at 4:30 p.m. today to consider a vote on the proposal. The discussion of the review was postponed.
The evaluation said a satisfactory score would result if a majority of the items were ranked has having met or exceeded expectations. However the report’s summary on meeting annual objectives said, “there were a total of 101 items of which 44 items received a majority score of an “E” (exceeds expectations) or an “M” (met expectations) and 57 items received a score of a “P” (progress has been made) or “N” (no progress made).”
Garcia’s own self-evaluation of the goals in annual objectives was also mixed with the director also giving himself a “P” or “N” rankings on 39 objectives.
District administrators were also allowed to weigh in and they unanimously gave the director passing marks. Those scores gave Garcia an overall passing grade and without them, Garcia's rating would have been failing.
The school board’s management evaluation of Garcia was also mixed with no unanimous vote being delivered in any of the 17 categories that were considered. Individual school board members’ reviews were not released.
In financial planning, Garcia won his highest marks with all board members saying the director had either met or exceeded expectations. His worst scores were in communication and counsel to the board with four of nine saying he had not met expectations.
Garcia’s self review on the same criteria said that he met or exceeded expectations in all areas.
A full copy of the report is available for download here.
Six members of the board ranked Garcia’s treatment of the staff as meeting expectations while three said no progress had been made. Rankings were also mixed between meeting and just progressing on expectations in other staff areas such as compensation and evaluation.
Eight members said he had done well handling the district’s calendar.
In rating Garcia’s progress at meeting annual objectives, a third (38 of 101) of the items scored nine of nine in making no progress.
In the 65 areas dealing with meeting the federal No Child Left Behind guidelines, Garcia took nine out of nine votes for no progress in 26 (40%) areas. Majority scores of either minimal progress or no progress were 58% of the total rankings (38 of 101).
Garcia saw the situation differently and gave himself scores of “P” or N” in only 25 of the 101 areas.
Failing scores from the board were also reported in achieving student proficiency on the state writing targets and mostly failing scores were awarded in increasing the average ACT and SAT scores. The goal of increasing the number of ACT test takers who meet state college entrance requirements and boosting the number of students who achieved qualifying ACT scores were also failing. The scores are important to students who want to attend college.
Garcia largely agreed in his self-assessment on meeting state writing goals, but gave himself much better scores on meeting ACT and SAT targets.
Scores were mixed in the target area of achieving equitable enrollment in schools to match diversity in the community. Among K-8 students Garcia got strong rankings in reducing the number of children in remedial programs while he received nearly universal failing scores in those same categories for high school students. Garcia’s self-evaluation largely echoed that view.
Garcia’s review of his own performance reflected a feeling of excellent work in areas of leadership.
- Jim Grinstead
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