MANKATO — The students aren’t the only ones getting a report card at Mankato Area Public Schools.
The Mankato Area Public Schools Board held a closed meeting on Monday to hold their annual superintendent evaluation for Supt. Paul Peterson. It’s part of a routine process that’s meant to ensure district leadership is on the same page.
Peterson was evaluated based on a series of standards which include resource management and parent, student and community engagement; as well as his progress towards goals that the board had set previously.
As part of the process, the board received feedback from the 50-person district leadership team that works daily with Peterson.
Board Chair Shannon Sinning says the board had overwhelmingly positive results to share with the superintendent.
“It was a really good consensus on his performance. There are levels of exemplary performance, professional performance in all the different categories,” Sinning said. “That’s what he received, so it was a good outcome.”
These remarks are just the latest in a long-standing run of Peterson receiving only “exemplary performance” or “professional performance” on his evaluations. He says it means a lot knowing the high bar the board has.
“I always feel very fortunate to work within a school district that values providing professionals with feedback to improve performance, and this board, on an annual basis, does just that,” he said. “The board has set what I believe is a very aspirational strategic roadmap that is the North Star for where the board sees public education advancing within our region. It is absolutely essential that the board have an opportunity to engage (with me) and for me to collect input from them as to how they think leadership is doing in attaining the goals that they have set.”{p dir=”ltr”}For Sinning, having a superintendent like Peterson takes a load off his own mind.{p dir=”ltr”}“He makes the job so much easier, because he is so good at doing the things that need to be done,” Sinning said. “I feel personally fortunate to work with him, because if I was working with a superintendent that wasn’t a good superintendent, it would make me not look very good and it would make my life a lot harder.”
Sinning says that the three main topics of discussion for the meeting were the changes coming to the high school and middle school experience, whether through the secondary redesign project or other projects, financial difficulties the district will be facing in the near future and declining enrollment.
Looking ahead to the next school year, which will be Peterson’s ninth as superintendent, he says he’s looking forward to all the innovation the district will be undergoing, as well as the renovations at West High School being revealed.