After New Haven’s school board met privately for an hour and 20 minutes on Monday about the superintendent’s annual evaluation, board members — including the board president and mayor — said they do not yet know if the evaluation will be conducted orally or in writing this year. That decision will determine whether the public gets to see it.
That behind-closed-doors evaluation of Supt. Madeline Negrón’s performance began during the latest Board of Education meeting at King/Robinson School.
The school board members spent more than an hour in private executive session to discuss the matter. Board of Education President OrLando Yarborough said that the evaluation will require a multi-meeting process.
When asked if the superintendent’s evaluation is being conducted orally or in writing this year, Yarborough said, “No, I don’t want to say. A decision hasn’t been made. We’ve just begun the first part of the evaluation.”
Last year and in years prior, the Board of Education conducted its annual evaluation for the school district’s superintendent in a verbal, private conversation rather than in writing. That meant that when the Independent filed a Freedom of Information Act request for Negrón’s evaluation last year, there was no written review to provide, thereby allowing the board to sidestep open-records law.
The board’s past practice of conducting verbal rather than written evaluations of the superintendent means that the public cannot know exactly what the school board thinks about how the employee at the helm of the school district is performing in the job.
Negrón began serving as New Haven Public Schools’ (NHPS) superintendent on July 1, 2023, with a three-year contract. Her original contract therefore would have been up July of this year. NHPS spokesperson Justin Harmon told the Independent that after conducting Negrón’s first annual evaluation, the Board of Education approved a one-year contract extension. “Thus, the current contract ends on June 30, 2027,” Harmon said.
When asked why last year’s evaluation was not conducted in writing, Yarborough and Mayor Justin Elicker told the Independent at the time that an oral evaluation allows for a more honest back-and-forth than a written one subject to FOIA.
On Monday, Yarborough said that this year’s evaluation process will be “similar to last year and the previous years that we’ve done an evaluation.”
He said that during the process, the superintendent shares a report for the previous school year. Then, he said, “The board gets a chance to have conversation, ask questions of the superintendent, and then the board deliberates among itself.”
Reached by phone Tuesday, Elicker, who also sits on the school board, said that because the evaluation process has just started, the board has not yet discussed the format for the evaluation. “The evaluation process was started last night and we spoke with Dr. Negrón briefly, but it’s just the start of the evaluation process and it will take multiple meetings to go through the overall process. We haven’t had that conversation as a board yet as to what the outcome is going to be,” he said.
Board member Andrea Downer said Monday after the meeting, “We didn’t really discuss much. We just know we need an extra session.”
“I’m going to write mine,” said Board of Education Secretary Edward Joyner on Monday when asked whether the board will conduct an oral or written evaluation.
Joyner said that he will write up his evaluation in a brief because “I believe that it’s probably in the public’s best interest to have the written evaluation.”
Downer added, “I’m leaning toward writing a public statement.”
When Joyner, Downer, and Yarborough were asked by this reporter what Negrón’s strengths are and what they believe she could work on, they each declined to respond, citing that the process is ongoing.
“I don’t have an answer for that,” Yarborough responded, then said he will have to think on whether he wants to speak for the full board by providing a response.
Downer and Joyner each said they were “not yet” ready to discuss Negrón’s performance.
When asked about Negrón’s strengths thus far and how she can grow, Elicker described her as a strong leader “who was handed a difficult deck of cards” due to under-funding.
He named Negrón’s plan to introduce an opt-in plan for buses, to decrease transportation costs, as an example of her creative thinking. He added, “She’s pulled together more team members to help address the challenges. We’re seeing steady progress with improved academics. We have a pathway to address the facilities issues, and Dr. Negrón has been a strong leader there.”
For an area of improvement, Elicker said he hopes to see continued creativity in addressing the district’s budget limitations. “The education team can do more work within the existing resources, but at the same time, the challenge is driven by the lack of resources that are desperately needed,” he concluded.
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