LYNN — Superintendent Dr. Patrick Tutwiler will receive a positive evaluation from the School Committee next month.
The School Committee shared some positive remarks about Tutwiler at its meeting last week during a discussion that was centered around how to conduct its annual review of the superintendent given how last school year was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Everyone feels you’ve done a pretty outstanding job under the circumstances, including me,” Mayor Thomas M. McGee, chairman of the School Committee, told Tutwiler last Thursday.
While all of the committee members agreed that Tutwiler had performed well during the COVID-shortened 2019-20 school year, there was some debate over what time frame the evaluation should cover and when it should be administered.
Committee members Jared Nicholson and Michael Satterwhite suggested that rather than giving an evaluation next month that would cover a 2019-20 school year that ended on June 30, a review should instead be given in the spring that would cover the 2019-20 and 2020-21 school years.
By combining the two evaluations, Nicholson said the review would capture work that was done before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down schools last March and the work that was done during the summer and this past fall to pivot to remote learning.
Satterwhite agreed, saying that combining the two evaluations would be more efficient and would more accurately represent the current state of the schools, as instruction has “changed drastically” since last March.
“There’s obvious evidence that Dr. Tutwiler has taken this ship and changed course and that’s what we wanted,” said Satterwhite. “That’s why we hired him. The district has documented evidence of the work, but what I’m trying to say is it doesn’t go away just because we’re doing it two months down the line, in March instead of January.
“It doesn’t change anything. He gets more feedback, more current feedback than doing it the way that is being suggested … I think it’s better to give him more current information than just to focus on 19-20, which is very different than where we are today.”
However, vice-Chair Donna Coppola and member Lorraine Gately were not in favor of holding off until the spring, saying that Tutwiler was entitled to receive his full annual evaluation, which is a stipulation of his three-year contract with the school district.
“I don’t agree with my colleagues,” said Coppola. “I feel Dr. Tutwiler is entitled to a full evaluation. We’ve kind of indicated tonight — a number of people on the committee — that we are satisfied with what he’s done. But he’s entitled — this is most beneficial to him to have this evaluation and I think this is something we should be doing.”
Gately agreed, saying that she wanted to give a more immediate evaluation that would provide feedback on the work that was done to transition to remote learning.
“It would be faster for us to roll it in but I don’t think it would be fair to Dr. Tutwiler after all of the work that he put in all those meetings, all summer long, all of it — he worked so hard,” said Gately. “He deserves to hear some feedback on his work in an evaluation.”
Ultimately, the committee voted in line with a recommendation from Tutwiler, who suggested that his evaluation should cover the 2019-20 school year, and the work that was done to transition to remote learning this past summer.
“I really think that we need to close the books on last year, the 19-20 school year,” said Tutwiler. “I appreciate that folks want to recognize the launch of the school year, all the work that’s happened, getting the school year on point, (but) that can be recognized in the next evaluation.”
The panel voted unanimously to approve Tutwiler’s recommendation and will present its evaluation for the 2019-20 school year, including this past summer, in early January.
Tutwiler will not receive a full evaluation because of the disruption the pandemic had on last school year. He will not be graded on whether he met his student achievement and district improvement goals, which were significantly impacted by the school closures, but will be evaluated on standards and indicators that were set by the committee.
For example, standards evaluated in the last report included Tutwiler’s performance around instructional leadership, management and operations, family and community engagement and professional culture.
The committee chose to adhere to a recommendation from Dorothy Presser, field director for the Massachusetts Association of School Committees, who has been advising school committees to evaluate superintendents on the same goals next year.
“(To) ensure that the progress moves forward and that you’re also being fair to the superintendent, what we have recommended is that goals stay in place,” said Presser.
