The main topic of October’s only Metro Nashville Public Schools board meeting was the director’s evaluation. In short, MNPS Director of Schools Adrienne Battle met all of the board’s overall expectations for the 2022-23 academic year. Battle, along with board chair Rachael Anne Elrod and District 4 representative Berthena Nabaa-McKinney, attended the meeting remotely.Â
In the current evaluation process, the director of schools reports quarterly self-evaluations. Members of the school board review these evaluations and provide feedback in the winter and the summer. In October, they present the summative evaluation, which considers the director’s self-evaluation and district data in four categories: literacy, numeracy, social-emotional learning and transitions. The data used to inform these decisions includes that from benchmark, achievement and growth testing, along with attendance rates. The evaluation also considers the performance of specific MNPS initiatives. They decide if the director meets, partially meets or doesn’t meet expectations.
For the 2022-23 academic year, the board concluded that Battle met expectations in all categories. For the academic components of the evaluation — numeracy and literacy — they cited student and district growth data and noted increases in math and reading achievement scores, which fall at 22.5 percent and 28.5 percent, respectively.
The SEL component of the evaluation highlighted the fact that MNPS met its attendance goals, with an average daily attendance rate of 91.8 percent. (The districtwide chronic absence rate is 27.5 percent.) It also nodded to an increase in the amount of engagement to the support hub and the number of students enrolled in the district’s Sown to Grow program (93 percent), and broadly referenced success in the district's advocacy and peace centers. The transitions component of the evaluation considered increased retention as a result of reintroducing fifth grade back into elementary schools, but did not provide a specific number. It also included the number of MNPS students who achieved full-ride scholarships at local universities, but not overall MNPS college-going rate, which was 44 percent in 2021, according to a report compiled by the Nashville Public Education Foundation.
The complete slideshow for the director’s evaluation can be seen below.
