Elmbrook Superintendent Fails to Provide Accountability Framework
Approved Board Policy 9115 was not followed.
As defined by Policy 9115, Elmbrook Superintendent Mark Hansen was to provide Reporting and Accountability Framework at the Community and Legislative Engagement (CLE) meeting prior to the start of the school year. That CLE meeting was 8/24/22, and not only was this accountability framework not on the agenda, Mark Hansen was not even in attendance for this meeting.
A community member brought copies of this policy to the meeting, and when a Board member questioned Chris Thompson from the administration on the oversight, the response appeared to be dismissive, as if nothing had changed and it could simply be discussed in October.
Accountability has been a repeated ask from Elmbrook residents given issues the community has discovered. This incident could be another example where the District administration disregards approved Board policy.
Why does the District have this framework? Per their own policy:
"The District employs a comprehensive evaluation and accountability system to:
spur continuous improvement of outcomes for students, staff, schools, departments, programs, taxpayers and the entire community,
ensure the effective use of resources to achieve the District’s mission, vision, values and goals,
facilitate effective fact-based decision making, and
hold students, staff, schools, departments, programs and the District accountable for their contributions to the achievement of these aims."
This policy was last reviewed May 10, 2022 so it would be hard to make the case that it wasn’t known about.
Update: Policy 9115 was added last minute to the CLE 9/28/22 agenda. Community members in attendance reported that the administration admitted they have not been following this policy as written for several years. The meeting agenda puts forward that the administration's update of the District Strategy Map fulfilled this policy.
An interesting admission is that the renewal of the Strategy Map was done only by a discussion with Mark Hansen, Superintendent and Scott Wheeler, Board President and Jean Lambert, Board Vice President. A couple CLE members expressed their disapproval with this not being brought to the full Board or the CLE committee as listed in the policy.
Superintendent Mark Hansen Reviews Requests to Speak on 7/12/22
