By Fred Guarino
The Lowndes Signal

The Lowndes County Board of Education voted unanimously Thursday night to extend the contract of School Superintendent Dr. Daniel Boyd to 2016.

The one-year contract extension followed an evaluation in which Boyd scored 50 out of a possible 52 points in the state evaluation system, according to Dr. James Wright, president and CEO of Professional Development Services LLC. Wright said the evaluation was based on a board of education questionnaire, administrative survey, structured interview and portfolio.

Boyd scored 49 out of 52 possible points last year and was given a one-year contract extension and a 3 percent raise at that time.

“I see continuous improvements in Lowndes County School System. I see continuous improvement in the superintendent’s performance,” Wright said.

He said one of the areas in which Boyd was so much improved in terms of scoring was the area of leadership in human resources.

Wright spoke of Boyd’s ability to go outside and come up with external funding to further enhance the stabilization and institutionalization of adequate quality staffing of Lowndes County Schools.

“And as long as those kinds of things are taking place, you’re going to see continuous growth, you’re going to see stabilization of programs and you’re going to see improvement in student achievement,” Wright said.

He said Boyd received a mean score of 3.7 out of 4 on the board questionnaire and composite mean score of about 3.5 out of a possible 4 in all of the areas on the administrative surveys.

He said the lowest area of professional development from the board’s perspective and from the central office and administrators’ area was problem solving and collaboration.

“That is not to say that he is doing not a great job in collaboration and problem solving,” Wright said. “That’s saying that out of a possible 4 that he scored a 3.4 from the board’s prospective on problem solving and a 3.2 from the administrators’ perspective on problem solving.  And that’s how we come up with those areas of professional development that he would need to work on.”

Wright said in Boyd’s portfolio there were excellent signs showing that the right kinds of activities were taking place in the area of both collaboration and problem solving.

“Dr. Boyd does an excellent job of validating his reports of collaborating with parents, students, teachers, state department of education, the federal government, all the regional entities, the associations that he’s a member of,” Wright said.

He congratulated Boyd on a successful evaluation this year.

“I’m going to use the results of the evaluation to continue to improve myself,” Boyd said.

In approving the personnel report, the board voted to extend the superintendent’s contract by one year to June 30, 2016.

Board President Steve Foster also congratulated Boyd on an “excellent evaluation.”