Webb evaluation to be done by year’s end, board vows

By HAROLD GWIN

VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER

YOUNGSTOWN — The city school board didn’t complete the superintendent’s job evaluation last year, but the chairman of the board’s personnel committee said one will be done by the end of this year.

Dr. Wendy Webb took the job as superintendent in 2004, and her contract called for her to have an annual evaluation of her performance done by the board.

So far, she’s had only one.

The annual evaluation is to be completed each November.

She didn’t have one in 2004 because she’d been on the job only for a few months by November. Board members felt it wouldn’t be fair to examine her job performance for such a short period.

She had an evaluation done in 2005, but the board never got around to finishing one in 2006.

That won’t happen this year, said Jamael Tito Brown, chairman of the personnel committee, vowing that the task will be finished before he leaves office Dec. 31.

He handed out evaluation forms to each board member last week, and the completed documents are due by Tuesday, he said.

Each board member is to do an assessment of Webb’s performance. The board will then schedule special meetings to review the findings and come up with a composite score. The board will then meet with Webb to present its findings.

There hasn’t been any public indication from any board member regarding any dissatisfaction with her performance, and Brown said in August the board is looking at how it can keep her on the job.

Webb took the job at an annual salary of $112,000 and got a 4.4 percent raise that boosted her pay to $117,000 in 2005-06.

It rose again in 2006-07 to $122,500, a 4.7 percent increase.

Webb, along with other district administrators, has taken a wage freeze for this year to help with the district’s financial recovery.

The board started its evaluation process last fall but never finished because some board members didn’t turn in their evaluations in a timely fashion. The last one wasn’t handed in until March of this year.

The Rev. Michael Write, board president, said at the time that other issues facing the district, namely a $15 million budget deficit, contract negotiations and school construction, focused board attention elsewhere.

Some board members, however, were publicly critical of the delay, saying nothing should have prevented the evaluation from being done. It should have been a priority despite other issues, they said.

Webb was initially given a three-year contract which technically expired June 30 of this year. Because the evaluation wasn’t done, however, her contract automatically rolled over for an additional year.