What’s at stake?
Fresno Unified board members were shown a draft of a new evaluation tool that will tie the superintendent’s performance to the yearly progress of the district’s goals.
Changes are coming to how the Fresno Unified Board of Education will rate the performance of the superintendent in its yearly evaluations.
A draft template of the new evaluation tool was presented at Wednesday’s board meeting. The new template evaluates the superintendent’s performance by tracking the progress of the district’s goals and guardrails.
Fresno Unified’s goals and guardrails are a set of district objectives aiming to improve student performance and raise employee standards through 2030. Over the next two years, governance training and support will be provided to the board by the Council of Great City Schools, following the adoption of the objectives earlier this year.
Veva Islas, who serves on the board representing the McLane area, said the new evaluation tool is another step in aligning the district’s operations to work towards meeting its yearly objectives.
“We’re going down a process called student-outcomes-focused governance, so everything gets aligned: the budget, the superintendent’s evaluation, all of it,” Islas said during the board meeting. “We’re very intentional about trying to achieve the outcomes that we all agreed on.”
The new evaluation grades the superintendent by tracking yearly targets for the goals and guardrails. For Misty Her’s 2025-2026 evaluation, the superintendent can score a maximum rating of 16, with one point for every target met, half a point for almost met and no points for missing yearly targets. Depending on the final rating, the superintendent’s performance can be rated as not satisfactory, partially satisfactory, satisfactory and exemplary.
“The hope is that this will live as part of a dashboard and an automated system where data will populate in,” said FUSD Chief of Staff Ambra O’Connor during the presentation.
Future evaluations will have a higher maximum score once baselines for the district’s “Life Goals” and “Health & Wellness” goals and guardrails are established in the future.
According to Andy Levine, who serves on the board representing the Fresno High region, previous evaluations weren’t focused on a set of specific objectives when analyzing a superintendent’s performance. By tying the superintendent’s performance to the progress of the district’s goals, Levine explained that the district can remain focused on achieving its long term goals.
“This is making sure that we’re objective to really stay laser focused,” Levine told Fresnoland. “We are the ones that need to make the decision of whether to give them a positive review that has implications going forward and it should be based primarily on goals and guardrails and not a broader kind of evaluation.”
According to Misty Her’s approved contract, the superintendent’s annual salary will increase a minimum of 3% for each positive evaluation.
Though the board voted to request changes to the evaluation tool’s format on Wednesday, the format is expected to return and be approved at the Dec. 10 board meeting. Final metrics on how “almost met” is defined for each target are then expected to be approved at the following meeting on Dec. 17.
Once approved and adopted, the board will then finalize the goals and timeline for superintendent evaluations by January 15 of each year and evaluations will be completed by May 30 of each year.
Roosevelt High School new gym project bid awarded
At Wednesday’s meeting, the board also approved awarding Davis Moreno Construction, Inc a total $10 million bid to build a new athletic facility at Roosevelt High School.
The new facility is part of an effort to increase access to athletic facilities across the district. It will include a new 13,300 square foot gymnasium with retractable bleachers that can seat 918 people, two classrooms, a lobby with restrooms and a snack bar.
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