The School Committee is deeply split over Superintendent Thomas Jefferson’s job performance, as indicated by the widely diverging evaluations he received at the committee’s April 12 meeting. School Committee members Stu Sklar and Virginia Justicz, who presented their evaluations first, gave the superintendent generally positive ratings. Chairman Keith Cheveralls and member Piali De followed with much more negative views.

Committee member Patricia Wenger, speaking last, gave a generally neutral-to-positive review, but ended with a heartfelt call for Jefferson to improve his relationships with some committee members and bring the board together.

“Every person at this table has something positive to contribute to the schools and the community,” she said. “And every person at this table can take some blame for the dysfunction of this committee.”

Committee members based their evaluations on the district goals set last July, which are available on the School Committee’s page of the school website. Each member wrote a separate evaluation and read it into the record. Jefferson will have the opportunity to respond at an upcoming meeting.

All members acknowledged Jefferson’s leadership in achieving the new contract with the Harvard Teacher’s Association. But some considered it a substantial accomplishment, with Sklar saying that Jefferson “kept the focus on common interests” and managed “a process marked by mutual respect.” In contrast, Cheveralls noted only that the contract had been settled.

Both Sklar and Justicz emphasized Jefferson’s role in balancing the budget in tough economic times, while keeping class size within bounds and avoiding teacher layoffs. They credited him with advocating for the Devens education contract, funds from which have prevented Harvard from suffering the severe cutbacks faced by many nearby schools. And they commended his cooperative work with other town boards, especially in facilitating the smooth transition of the Devens students into the schools.

Where a specific goal had not been met, Sklar and Justicz attributed the failure to financial constraints. One goal, for example, had called for the addition of new courses to the Bromfield School’s curriculum. Justicz noted that, in the current economic climate, the schools had been fortunate to be able to maintain their current range of offerings without cutbacks.

Justicz concluded, “He is pragmatic, thoughtful, and knowledgeable—as an educational leader and as a steward of the schools’ resources. We are fortunate to have his continued service in our schools.”

In contrast, Cheveralls and De presented far harsher evaluations. Both stressed that Jefferson “could have been more assertive” in requiring the Hildreth Elementary School to conduct a climate survey, despite “unnecessary” resistance from faculty and administration there. Cheveralls also faulted the superintendent for missing two meetings of the Devens Educational Advisory Committee (DEAC), as well as two meetings of the Capital Committee. In implementing the schools’ Strategic Plan, both De and Cheveralls noted that Jefferson had not presented quarterly progress reports to the committee, although admitting that committee had not put the updates on the agendas.

Both Cheveralls and De criticized Jefferson’s decision not to replace two curriculum leaders, in world languages and reading. Cheveralls asserted that the decision should have had much more discussion and charged that Jefferson “must press harder to understand the committee’s priorities.” The same issue led De to charge that the budget had been “balanced at the expense of curriculum leadership.”

Their major criticism, however, was that Jefferson did not communicate enough with the committee. “A consistent shortcoming of Tom’s is his proclivity to defer communicating with his School Committee on negative issues and/or matters potentially involving conflict,” Cheveralls summarized.

In the past, members’ evaluations would have been submitted to the chairman, who would have compiled them into a single document. Usually, the entire evaluation would have been held in executive session. The concluding document would eventually have become part of the public record.

However, under a recent ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, parts of a superintendent’s performance review that were once confidential must now take place in public. In a case involving the Wayland schools, the court ruled that the open meeting law requires a school committee to discuss an individual’s professional competence in open session. However, the committee must go into executive session to draft the written evaluation, so as to fulfill the requirements of the public records law, which forbids the public disclosure of employee work evaluations.