Superintendent Evaluation
Evaluating the superintendent is one of the few things a school board is required to do every single year. It’s also one of the things boards most often do badly — not from lack of care, but from lack of a process.
Without one, the evaluation becomes a conversation about impressions. Board members arrive with different expectations, weigh different things, and reach a conclusion nobody can quite explain. The superintendent leaves without knowing what to do differently. Next year, it happens again.
This program gives your board a structured, evidence-based process it can run itself. Done well, a superintendent evaluation improves performance immediately — and research is clear that superintendent competence affects every part of district performance.
WHY THIS ONE
What makes this different:
It’s data-based, not opinion-based. The process is designed to be as unbiased and objective as possible, which is what makes it defensible when the conclusions are uncomfortable. It promotes equity precisely because it doesn’t run on impressions.
It satisfies your annual requirement. The program is built to meet state annual evaluation requirements — including New Hampshire’s rule that boards evaluate the superintendent each year against written criteria the board has established.
It doesn’t stop at the annual review. The materials include guidance for formative check-ins through the year — quarterly performance conversations between the board and superintendent — so the annual evaluation confirms what everyone already knows rather than delivering a surprise.
It’s modular. The full program is comprehensive, and more than some boards want. Use the pieces that fit your district and leave the rest.
WHAT YOU GET
What’s in the program:
A superintendent position description you can use as-is or modify to fit your district.
Performance criteria built into that description, with explanations for each — process goals, outcome goals, role requirements, competency requirements, leadership style requirements, and the derailers and failure factors to watch for.
Two evaluation paths, with all the forms. Run it with board input only, or open it to multiple sources of stakeholder input. Instructions for both.
Consolidation and recommendation guidance. How to bring input together into a coherent picture, and how to turn that picture into recommendations the superintendent can actually act on.
Customization instructions for adapting every piece of it to your district.
Online materials and video guidance, including a program overview video and a video for each section walking through how to use the printed materials and tools.
Do It Yourself
- Everything your board needs to run the evaluation itself.
- You get access to the complete online program — position description template, performance criteria, evaluation forms, consolidation guidance, customization instructions, and video walkthroughs for each section. Work through it at your own pace, skipping the steps your district doesn't need.
- Questions come free. If something in the materials isn't clear, email us and we'll answer.
- Best when your board has the time and wants the process to become a permanent part of how it operates.
Done With You
- The same program, with us alongside the board.
- Everything in the DIY package, plus scheduled support on the parts where boards most often want help — building performance criteria that are genuinely measurable, designing the stakeholder input process, and consolidating what comes back into a fair and defensible assessment.
- This is also the right choice if you want to watch the process run properly once and then take it over. Most boards that start here move to DIY in year two.
Looking for a firm to run it?
- We used to conduct evaluations end to end. We don't anymore.
- That's deliberate. Our work now is putting the process in your board's hands rather than keeping it in ours — and an annual requirement is exactly the kind of thing a board should be able to do without hiring someone every year.
- Done With You covers most of the reasons boards used to ask for full service: not enough time, not enough confidence, wanting to see it modeled correctly the first time. If what you need is a genuinely neutral outside party — because the relationship between board and superintendent is strained, or because the evaluation may have consequences — tell us and we'll refer you to someone we'd trust with it.
High Praise from Our Clients
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There is no one with a more in depth understanding of education leadership development needs than Bill. His training programs were huge eye openers for leaders in our and surrounding districts. His ability to motivate leaders to up their game is unparalleled. In addition, my school was able to employ his “initiative and program mapping” process to create a focus on what was most important, and ensured that our energies were targeted on those activities that were most influential in improving student performance.
– Suzanne Koroshetz, former Principal of Brien McMahon HIgh School, Norwalk, CT
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The Bryan Group staff is highly skilled in executing the search process, including building an effective working relationship with search committees and boards. They are very adept at successfully navigating the political challenges that often accompany the search process. This is why we use them to conduct all our superintendent searches.
– Barrett M. Christina, former Attorney and Executive Director of the NH School Boards Association
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One of the things that struck me was the recognition by search committee members of the value of the process he taught us that could be used beyond the immediate search process, e.g., making better hires in the district, and for those working in the community, making improvements in hiring for their businesses.
– Keith Pfeifer, Ed.D., former superintendent of the Monadnock, NH School District
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Bill helped us significantly improve student performance through many different organization capacity building processes. He also provided us with competency-based hiring training, to include the use of the Guided Storytelling Interview methodology which we now employ with the hire of every leader, as well as teachers. He is the ultimate partner for any district or school redesign process. Change leadership is his forte.
– John Freeman, Ph.D., former Superintendent of the Pittsfield, NH School District