How the Board + Superintendent Should Work Together

Petition Reminder

If you haven’t already signed our petition please do so below

Our Stance

Over the next few days you will here our stance as the Unmuted Podcast. These are our opinions and we hope that if they resonate with you it can become a guide for how we as a community move forward with what’s expected between the education system and the community.

Transparency

First and foremost, we want transparency. This means teachers, administrators, and district leadership must be able to speak directly and honestly with the community without fear of retribution from the superintendent or anyone else.

Transparency also means that financial and operational information is truly open to the public. The community should not have to file records requests just to understand how district money is being spent.

In addition, documents that are shared with the public should clearly identify their authors. When we see phrases such as “NCSD staff recommended,” we should also see which staff members contributed to that recommendation. These are the people who are leading the work, and they are the ones who need thoughtful feedback from the community. If we do not know who they are, there is no meaningful way to provide that feedback.

Community Engagement

When major decisions are on the table that will affect our students, the community should be involved from the very beginning of the process, and they should have access to all relevant data.

If the district is facing a budget shortfall that could lead to school closures, the community should be invited to help explore solutions. Decisions should not be made unilaterally and then presented at board meetings where the only option is to voice concerns after the fact.

Real community engagement means meeting people where they are. Not everyone has the time, transportation, or flexibility to attend a single board meeting. Hosting multiple meetings at different schools and at different times gives more people the opportunity to participate and ensures more voices are heard.

Leadership that Looks to the Future

The superintendent role should not be treated as a comfortable final stop before retirement. We need superintendents who are committed to our community for the long term.

We should seek leaders who are open to innovative approaches to education but not merely novelty for novelty’s sake. Too often, education chases the next new thing without realizing there is very little that is truly new under the sun. Human nature hasn’t changed, and many of the core problems we face today are the same ones we’ve been navigating for decades. What we need are leaders who can discern the difference between recycled trends and timeless, effective practices leaders who understand that approaches like problem-based learning aren’t new, but can be powerfully applied when used with intention, wisdom, and alignment to our community’s goals.

A Board that Understands the Superintendent Works for Them

We have heard from board members that the superintendent has, at times, treated them as if they were employees rather than the people who supervise the position.

In reality, the superintendent is the one employee of the board. The board sets direction and makes decisions, and the superintendent is responsible for carrying out those decisions, not the other way around.

Accountability for the Superintendent

There must be regular and meaningful evaluations of the superintendent that focus on one essential question: Is the superintendent meeting the goals of the community?

Building principals already undergo a highly scrutinized evaluation process every year. Their performance is judged through multiple metrics: yearly surveys from supervisors, growth on standardized testing, progress on school improvement plans, the volume and nature of parent complaints that escalate to district leadership, and issues related to discipline, attendance, and special education. Principals live in a constant cycle of accountability yet the superintendent, who oversees the entire system, is not held to the same level of transparency.

A superintendent should also receive a yearly anonymous survey, just as principals do. That evaluation must include meaningful feedback from the people who work under them– teachers, support staff, building administrators, and district leadership. Their experiences matter, and their voice should be a required part of the superintendent’s formal review.

Finally, the results of these evaluations should be shared with the community. Accountability only works when the public can clearly see how decisions are being made and whether leaders are truly serving students and families. Without visibility, trust erodes and the system loses credibility.

If principals are evaluated annually through detailed, multi-layered measures, then the superintendent, the individual responsible for the entire direction of the district, must be equally accountable to the people they serve.