Paul gets high marks during annual evaluation

If Superintendent Scott Paul’s recent annual evaluation by the Whitley County Board of Education were a report card, Paul would have received the equivalent of five A’s and two B’s.

The Whitley County Board of Education held its monthly meeting on Aug. 11 and met in executive session for slightly over an hour to discuss pending litigation and the superintendent’s evaluation.

After emerging from executive session, that board approved the superintendent’s evaluation, which scored Paul as “exemplary” in five of seven areas, including: instructional leadership, cultural leadership, human resource leadership, managerial leadership and influential leadership.

Paul received a score of “accomplished” in the areas of strategic leadership and collaborative leadership.

“We are very proud of our superintendent. We think he has done an excellent job and has had to face a lot of problems the last few years,” noted Board Chairman Larry Lambdin.

“Exemplary” was the highest possible score and means Paul is exceeding the standard.

“Accomplished” was the second highest possible score and it means that Paul met the standard.

Other possible scores were “developing,” which means makes growth toward meeting the standard, and “growth required,” which means the areas are required to be addressed in a professional growth plan.

In other business, the board:

• Introduced Alicia Logan as the new district finance officer. Logan replaces Leigh Burke, who was terminated in June.

“A review of bank statements and other financial information and documents confirm that you have been dishonest, and have indulged in other types of misconduct, such as falsifying information supplied to the district and violating local policy and state and federal statute and regulation,” Paul wrote in Burke’s June 16 termination letter. “According to the information I have, you have knowingly and intentionally used school district funds to pay personal bills and have falsified information on absences reports. The aforementioned are the grounds upon which I am terminating your contract with the Whitley County School District effective June 2, 2016.”

• Recognized maintenance supervisor Willie Powell with the monthly “Above and Beyond Award.”

• Set the 2017 motor vehicle and watercraft property tax rate at 55.2 cents per $100 of assessed value, which is the same rate as this year.