Sean C. Morgan
The District 55 School Board gave Supt. Don Schrader ratings of “high satisfactory” to “very good” during an evaluation of his performance following his first year in the district.
The board rated Schrader in nine different areas on a scale of one to five, said Chairman Jason Redick. Schrader rated an average of three to four.
“Everything was a satisfactory to very good rating,” Redick said. “Overall, he’s doing a good job. Being a first year, it’s always difficult. This year was an exceptionally difficult year.”
Everyone took pointers from the process that led to the establishment of a four-day school week next year, Redick said.
None of this year’s difficult issues reflect badly on Schrader, who was working with what was already here, Redick said.
The controversial four-day week had been on the back burner for a couple of years, Redick said. It was a discussion item raised during previous budget-cutting efforts.
“I think the strongest feature we all saw and we all agreed on was just (Shrader’s) integrity and leading the district,” Redick said. He deals with issues quickly, makes sure students aren’t in harm’s way and takes the high road.
“He does a good job keeping the board informed when issues come up,” Redick said. There are always differences between jobs like his, and he is adapting well to a new job and a new board.
“I’ll speak for myself a little bit,” Redick said. “This year has been a difficult year.”
There has been a lot negative from the district and about the district, he said, and the board would like Schrader to focus on making sure the district is viewed well in the community, making sure the community is aware of his open-door forum, access that is available to union members, parents and members of the community to help “gain back some of the trust that was probably lost just because of the difficulties this year.”
“Across the board, everything was rated not at the exceptional level, but ‘You’re definitely doing your job well,”” Redick said. “The only areas of improvement were kind of based around the relationship with the community.”
That’s not something Schrader needs to improve personally but rather for the district, Redick said. He does it well already, but it needs to be pushed out into the community.
“His leadership, instruction, curriculum sides, everything there was good, solid,” Redick said. “I think the board agrees we do have some ground to make up, but he’s doing a good job at this point.”
“I liked the process,” Schrader said of the evaluation. “I always appreciate constructive feedback. Collectively, as a board, it was a good evaluation.”
Individually, there were a few things that Schrader said he needed to work out, but “they’re happy.”
This year had a lot of firsts for Schrader, things he has never handled in the past, he said, but he has spent the year getting used to the new district. He hasn’t made many changes, but he will have some recommendations for changes next year.
For example, he plans to improve the “Learning Walk” program and involve teachers more in the process, he said. Right now, administrators spend time in classrooms looking for key elements of effective education, such as highly effective questions, standards-based lessons and relating subject material to the real world for students, explaining why they need to learn the material.
Teachers have joined the “Walk,” Schrader said, collecting data to help improve the effectiveness of Sweet Home classrooms.
It’s a big change, and it will provide opportunities for teachers to become leaders, Schrader said. The program is now called the Sweet Home Leadership Academy.
“I feel good about the School District,” Schrader said. “One thing I noticed right away, I’ve been accepted into the community. People feel comfortable with me. I feel like I’m part of the community. That was important to me.”
While Redick talked about the difficulties the district faced this year, Schrader noted that a lot of good things happened here in the past year.
“I’m looking forward to an even better year next year,” Schrader said.