The Superintendent Evaluation Is in June — Here’s Your 90-Day Check-In
February 8, 2027
The Jan 13 piece launched the superintendent evaluation cycle on a five-month timeline. The Feb 1 budget review showed you how to read the proposed budget for goal alignment. The Feb 3 data check-in showed you how to run a progress monitoring review that produces governance decisions.
This week’s work is different. It’s not about a document or a meeting structure. It’s about whether the evaluation process you started in January is actually happening.
And the honest answer, for most boards, is that it’s not. Not because anyone is avoiding it. Because no one has checked.
What the 90-day check-in is — and isn’t
The February check-in is not an evaluation. It’s not a progress report on the superintendent’s performance. It’s a process check. A verification that the machinery you set in motion in January is still running.
I’ve watched boards that start the evaluation process in January and go dark until May. May arrives, the evaluation committee realizes the evidence file is empty, and four board members spend two weeks reconstructing four months of observations from memory. The June evaluation becomes a scramble — and produces a document no one fully trusts.
I’ve watched boards that maintain a steady rhythm. The February check-in takes fifteen minutes. The March observation memos take thirty minutes total. The May factual accuracy check takes one board meeting. The June evaluation produces a document that both the board and superintendent recognize as accurate.
The difference is not the evaluation framework. It’s whether the board did the February check-in.
Three things the check-in produces
Fifteen minutes. Three components. Here’s what each one produces.
1. Evidence verification — is the file building?
The evaluation framework your board adopted in January should have included an evidence collection plan. Board minutes from the budget review and data check-in. The first data dashboards. Records of board-superintendent communication.
February is the moment to verify that the evidence is being collected. The evaluation committee chair opens the evidence folder and confirms what’s there. This takes five minutes. If the Feb 1 and Feb 3 meeting documents are filed, the file is building. If they’re not, February is the time to fix it — not May, when reconstructing two months of missing evidence is harder.
I’ve watched a board discover in February that the first data dashboards were never saved to the shared folder. Ten-minute fix — the superintendent had the dashboards on his desktop. The board that discovers that gap in May doesn’t have dashboards to retrieve. They have memory.
2. Emerging questions — what will the June evaluation address?
The evaluation timeline works best when the board and superintendent treat evidence gathering as a year-long conversation rather than a single judgment. The February check-in should surface the questions that will shape the June evaluation — while there’s still time to answer them.
If the budget review revealed a gap between the board’s January direction and the superintendent’s proposed allocation, the question is: “Was the gap a communication failure or a resource constraint?” Pose it in February. The superintendent has four months to respond. The board has four months to observe the response.
If the first data review showed slower-than-expected progress on a literacy goal, the question is: “Is this a strategy issue, an implementation issue, or a timeline issue?” Name it in February. Let the evidence accumulate.
The February check-in doesn’t answer these questions. It names them. It puts them on the record as topics the evaluation will address. And it gives both the board and superintendent a shared understanding of what the June conversation will cover.
3. Board member engagement — is everyone contributing?
The single biggest failure I see in superintendent evaluation processes is delegation to a committee. Four board members cannot represent the evaluation observations of seven. The full board needs to contribute.
I recommend a simple practice: every board member submits a one-page observation memo on the first of each month from March through May. Not an evaluation — an observation. “Here’s what I’m seeing in the data reviews. Here’s what I’m observing about board-superintendent communication. Here’s a question I’d like the evaluation to address.”
The evaluation committee chair collects these memos and files them in the evidence folder. By May, the committee has five to seven member memos per month — a rich, real-time record of board observations. The June evaluation doesn’t rely on anyone’s memory. It relies on documentation.
The February-through-June timeline
| Month | Evaluation Action | What It Produces |
|---|---|---|
| February | Evidence collection check-in + emerging questions | Confirms the evidence file is building; names the questions the evaluation will address |
| March | Board member observation memos begin | Monthly one-page observations from each board member; filed in evidence folder |
| April | Mid-year governance check-in includes evaluation component | Board reviews whether the evaluation process is on track during the April governance self-assessment |
| May | Factual accuracy check | Evaluation committee sends preliminary findings to superintendent for factual review |
| June | Full board evaluation adoption | Board reviews, discusses, and adopts the evaluation |
Every month from February through June has a defined action. No month is skipped. No month requires more than the defined action.
The difference between a process and a scramble
The superintendent evaluation is the single most consequential governance action your board will take this year. It communicates what the board values. It determines whether the board-superintendent partnership continues on the same terms or needs to change. And it’s the tool through which the board holds itself accountable — because the evaluation measures how well the superintendent executed the goals the board set.
A board that does the work between January and June produces an evaluation informed by real evidence, shaped by questions asked in real time, and supported by observations from every board member.
A board that waits until May produces an evaluation based on whatever everyone remembers from the past four months. Memory is not reliable when there were three data reviews, two budget discussions, and a dozen board meetings between January and June.
The February check-in is the difference. Fifteen minutes. Three components. And your board stays on track for a June evaluation that produces clarity instead of controversy.
You’ve done the hard work already. You read the budget. You reviewed the data. Now check on the process that holds it all together — the evaluation that will tell you whether the superintendent delivered on the goals you set.
Your free CTA: Reply to this email with the keyword CheckIn and I’ll send you the Superintendent Evaluation Evidence Collection Checklist — a month-by-month timeline with the February check-in protocol, the monthly observation memo template for board members, and the evidence folder structure your evaluation committee can set up this week.
Your paid CTA: I offer a Superintendent Evaluation Process Facilitation package — five months of structured support from January through June, including the February check-in facilitation, monthly evidence collection monitoring, and May factual accuracy review. Reply to this email for pricing and availability.
This continues the Governance to Impact arc — moving from January’s foundation into February’s execution. Wednesday’s piece covered the first data review. This week’s post walks through the superintendent evaluation 90-day check-in. Subscribe at effectiveschoolboards.com/newsletter to continue the series.
Backlinks: The January 13 piece, “The Superintendent Evaluation That Measures What Matters — Start the Cycle in January,” launched the superintendent evaluation cycle. The January 27 governance roadmap established February’s milestones. The Feb 3 data check-in piece produced the progress monitoring structure the evaluation builds on. This piece executes the February 90-day check-in that keeps the evaluation process alive through June.