How Ohio School Boards Should Evaluate Their Superintendent: A Practical Guide

Ohio Revised Code 3319.01 establishes the board's authority over the superintendent — including the obligation to evaluate. The law requires at minimum an annual written evaluation, but the requirements differ depending on where the superintendent is in their contract cycle.

In a year the contract is not due to expire: The board must complete at least one evaluation and provide a written copy to the superintendent no later than the end of the contract year as defined by the superintendent's annual salary notice.

In a year the contract is due to expire: The board must complete at least a preliminary evaluation and a final evaluation. The preliminary evaluation must be provided in writing at least 60 days before any board action on the employment contract. The final evaluation must include the superintendent's intended recommendation to the board regarding contract renewal.

One point the statute is explicit about: the establishment of an evaluation procedure does not create an expectancy of continued employment. The board retains final authority on contract renewal or non-renewal, regardless of how the evaluation turns out. Evaluation informs the decision — it does not determine it.

The Ohio School Boards Association has developed a standards-based evaluation model specifically for superintendent and treasurer evaluation. It's built around five standards, intentionally aligned with the evaluation frameworks used for principals (OPES) and teachers (OTES), so the accountability structure is consistent across the leadership hierarchy.

Standard 1: Student Learning. The superintendent's leadership must connect to student achievement outcomes. This means setting goals tied to measurable learning indicators — graduation rates, proficiency scores, chronic absenteeism rates — and being accountable for progress against them. Boards that evaluate superintendents on process only (held the meetings, filed the reports) without connecting to outcomes are missing the point.

Standard 2: Vision and Strategic Leadership. The superintendent is responsible for developing and executing the district's strategic plan in partnership with the board. Evaluation examines whether the superintendent is translating boardroom priorities into operational reality — whether the plan is actually being implemented and whether the evidence supports the reported progress.

Standard 3: Community Relations and Communication. Public schools exist in communities, and the superintendent is the district's primary public face. This standard examines external communication quality, community engagement, media relationships, and the superintendent's ability to build trust with families and stakeholders across the district.

Standard 4: Organizational Management. This covers the operational health of the district — fiscal stewardship, human resources decisions, facilities, legal compliance, and administrative effectiveness. Boards should be evaluating whether the organization is well-run, not just whether the superintendent is personally likable.

Standard 5: Professional Conduct and Ethics. Leadership character matters. This standard addresses the superintendent's integrity, professional development, relationships with staff, modeling of district values, and behavior as the district's chief representative.

The most common failure in superintendent evaluation isn't a bad conversation — it's the absence of agreed-upon goals at the start of the year. Without written, measurable goals established before the evaluation period, boards have nothing concrete to evaluate against. The result is a process that devolves into impressionistic judgments about personality and style rather than accountability for district outcomes.

Goals should be set collaboratively at the beginning of each contract year, documented in writing, and tied directly to the district's strategic plan priorities. A goal that says "improve student achievement" is not a goal — it's a category. A goal that says "increase third-grade reading proficiency from 64% to 72% by spring assessment, as measured by district benchmark data" is a goal.

The goal-setting conversation should address three questions for each objective: What specific outcome are we targeting? How will we measure it? What resources or support does the superintendent need from the board to achieve it? That last question matters. Boards that set ambitious goals for superintendents without examining what board-level decisions or resource commitments are required are setting up a dynamic where the superintendent is accountable for outcomes the board didn't actually enable.

Limit the number of formal goals to four to six. More than that dilutes accountability — when everything is a priority, nothing is. The goals should reflect the board's highest-stakes priorities for the year, not an exhaustive list of things the superintendent will be working on.

A well-run superintendent evaluation cycle has three distinct moments — not one. Compressing everything into a single annual meeting is how evaluation becomes perfunctory.

Goal-setting (July–August). At the start of the contract year, the board and superintendent meet to agree on the evaluation criteria, the process and tool that will be used, and the specific goals for the year. OSBA recommends that the process and evaluation instrument be agreed upon in advance — before the evaluation happens, not during it. Boards that show up to the evaluation meeting with criteria the superintendent hasn't seen before are not conducting an evaluation; they are delivering a verdict.

Mid-year check-in (December–January). Halfway through the contract year, the board and superintendent should meet to review progress against goals, identify any obstacles, and course-correct if needed. This check-in is not a formal evaluation — it's a conversation. Its purpose is to eliminate surprises in the formal evaluation. A superintendent who finds out in June that the board has concerns about something they could have addressed in January has been badly served by the process.

Formal evaluation (April–May, or 60 days before contract action). This is the structured, documented evaluation against the agreed criteria. The superintendent typically completes a self-evaluation first, presenting evidence and documentation of progress against goals in areas where the board may lack direct visibility. The board reviews that self-assessment alongside its own observations. The formal evaluation meeting is a dialogue, not a monologue — the superintendent should be able to respond to the board's assessment before the written evaluation is finalized.

Most evaluation failures aren't dramatic — they're structural. The same mistakes appear in districts across Ohio, year after year, because no one explained what an effective process looks like when new board members joined.

Evaluating without written goals. If you didn't write down what you expected at the start of the year, you are not conducting an evaluation — you are conducting a retrospective impression survey. All evaluation must trace back to documented, agreed-upon criteria established before the period being evaluated.

Treating the evaluation as a formality. "We always give him excellent." "She's been here for ten years, this is just paperwork." Evaluation that isn't taken seriously by the board communicates to the superintendent that the board isn't serious about accountability — and it communicates to the community that governance is theatrical. Even a strong superintendent deserves a real evaluation. It's how they know what the board values.

Conducting evaluation in public session. The actual evaluation conversation — the meeting where the board discusses its assessment of the superintendent — is properly held in executive session under ORC 121.22(G)(1), which permits executive session to consider the employment of a public employee. Conducting substantive evaluation discussions in public is both procedurally inappropriate and practically destructive to the working relationship.

Board members operating individually. Evaluation is a board action — the board evaluates as a body, not as five individuals with five separate assessments. Individual board members should not be communicating separate evaluative conclusions to the superintendent outside of the formal process. The board speaks with one voice in the evaluation meeting.

Conflating evaluation with discipline. The annual evaluation is not the appropriate venue for addressing a performance crisis. If there is a serious performance concern — one that may require action on the contract — the board needs to consult legal counsel and follow the procedures under ORC 3319.16. Trying to resolve a serious issue through the annual evaluation process without legal guidance is how boards end up in litigation.

The formal evaluation is the primary evidence base for contract renewal decisions, but it is not the only factor — and the law is explicit that a positive evaluation does not create an obligation to renew. The board retains full authority to make the contract decision it determines is in the district's best interest.

In practical terms, here is how the connection works: a superintendent whose evaluation reflects strong progress against goals, positive community relationships, and sound organizational management should expect a renewal conversation that goes smoothly. A superintendent whose evaluation reflects missed goals, unresolved concerns, or eroding board confidence should not be surprised when the contract discussion is difficult. The evaluation is not the decision — but it should be the honest predicate to the decision.

Boards that make contract non-renewal decisions that are not grounded in documented evaluation are exposed. If a superintendent challenges a non-renewal and the board cannot point to a paper trail of documented concerns raised through the evaluation process, the board is in a weak position legally and a worse position publicly.

When to contact OSBA. If the evaluation has surfaced concerns serious enough that the board is contemplating non-renewal or contract termination, contact OSBA and your district's legal counsel before you act. Ohio's statutory procedures for superintendent non-renewal and termination have specific steps and timelines — bypassing them, even accidentally, creates legal risk. OSBA's legal and leadership staff can advise on process before you make a decision that becomes harder to walk back.

More broadly: if your board and superintendent have a relationship that has deteriorated to the point where the evaluation feels adversarial, that is the signal to bring in outside facilitation — not to push through the evaluation and hope it resolves itself. OSBA can facilitate those conversations. It's far less expensive and damaging than a superintendent departure that plays out in public.