This story originally appeared in the July 28 issue of the Community Voice. For your own subscription, call 270-384-9454.
Troy Grider, chairman of the Adair County School Board, closed out Thursday ’s July meeting with a report on the board’s evaluation of superintendent Dr. Pam Stephens. Grider said the board had met with Stephens to discuss the evaluation and had collectively given her a 2.2 out of 4.0.
“I am disappointed,” Dr. Stephens said to the media. “I don’t want to make any other responses.”
The evaluation does not affect Stephens’ contract.
“Covid has been extremely difficult, it has made it hard on every relationship and every individual,” Grider said after the meeting. “Basically, we have asked for and are expecting better communication. It all spins off that.
“It is about communication with the board and following through. Just about everything we talked about came back to communication.”
Grider said the evaluation provides a checklist for further conversations with the board.
“Then again, I am not trying to hide anything, and I am not trying to be disrespectful to Dr. Stephens,” Grider said. “I would be the same way if you were the superintendent or anybody else. Lack of communication destroys businesses, it destroys churches, it destroys families, it destroys a lot of things.”
Grider and the school board voted unanimously in May of last year to extend Dr. Stephens’ contract by two years and give her a pay increase of 1.5 percent. She is making $136,000 annually.
State law requires boards to perform and document a final evaluation of the superintendent each year, and discussions relating to the evaluation can be done behind closed doors. However, the final evaluation is to be adopted in an open meeting, reflected in board minutes and available to the public on request.
Grider said during the meeting that the decision was made by the board collectively, and that is how the decision was presented to Dr. Stephens. She did, Grider said, receive very high marks in some categories. When everything was averaged together, it came to a 2.2.
“There will be multiple checkpoints between now and the next evaluation,” Grider said. “We’re just looking for better communication. That has been the base of the triangle where we have been lacking.”
Grider said the board members have a responsibility to make the decisions, sometimes very tough decisions, that best serve the district as a whole.
“We want to push our schools to the top. With our kids, educationally, we want to push our district to the top, we want to be the employer of choice. That way we can attract people. How does a school board do that? They do it by addressing things with the superintendent, and the superintendent carries those things out.”
By Scott Wilson
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