Superintendent frustrated School Board: Evaluations shed light on school chief's recent ouster

By Tim Damos

Baraboo News Republic - April 21, 2008: http://www.wiscnews.com/bnr/news/282389

BARABOO - Several School Board members were frustrated with what they saw as Baraboo School District Administrator Lance Alwin's failure to connect with and mobilize the community, as well as a lack of follow-through, prior to his resignation this month.

In yearly performance evaluations obtained by the News Republic through an open records request, one board member gave Alwin poor ratings for not trying harder to win community support for proposed referendums.

"He does advocate for children better than many, but he also has a way of isolating community members," Judd Maxwell wrote in his February 2008 evaluation of Alwin. "(He was) not willing to go in front of our community during the attempts at referendum."

The board hired a private attorney to investigate Alwin's job performance in February and later began negotiating the terms of his resignation. Though they have mentioned concerns about Alwin's job performance as a reason for the process, board members have declined to discuss the matter openly.

Alwin's lack of community ties was a common theme among board members' written comments in his performance evaluations.

"Mr. Alwin attempts to mobilize the community but does not have the personality to see it through," School Board President Kevin Vodak wrote in his 2008 evaluation of Alwin. "He talks the talk, but does not walk the walk."

Board members also wrote Alwin was not well respected by teaching staff.

"He seems isolated from staff," wrote board member Patty Spragg, who gave Alwin the poorest ratings of all board members. "I've not noticed significant involvement with either the staff or the community."

Vodak and Maxwell declined to elaborate on their written comments Sunday and Spragg could not be reached.

Board members ranked Alwin on a scale of 1 to 4 in 19 categories, with a possible high score of 76 and a possible low score of 19.

Spragg gave Alwin a total score of 20 with outgoing board member Mary Anne Stewart giving him a high score of 44.

Stewart's 2008 evaluation of Alwin differed drastically from her 2007 evaluation, which gave the former administrator an almost perfect score of 74.

In that evaluation, Stewart wrote, "Lance Alwin is one of the greatest persons I have ever known. I (we) have the honor of working with him for the most worthy of causes/missions; the education of our children and communities. Lance is (a) gift and blessing to our lives."

Stewart said Sunday although she voted to accept Alwin's resignation this month, she never lost faith in the district's former leader.

"I just think that we are in a new era and we are better and stronger because (Alwin) was here," Stewart said.

She said Alwin was successful in getting an all-day kindergarten center established at the West School Kindergarten Center, fine-tuning the workings of the School Board, improving the union negotiations process and getting the district to focus on reading.

Alwin's push to replace the athletics director position with activities director has brought more attention to extracurricular activities such as forensics and music, Stewart said, rather than just athletics.

Stewart said she worked frequently with Alwin when she was the board's president. And as for the board members who gave him lower scores, she said, "I don't think they knew Mr. Alwin as well (as I did)."

Stewart said Alwin is pursuing his doctorate and will undoubtedly make a lasting impact in the field of education someday.

She said Alwin appeared to be disappointed with the community's unwillingness to support referendum efforts to raise an additional $7.5 million in tax revenue for the district beyond what state revenue caps allow.

"I think that he in some way separated from the school district before the actual separation," Stewart said.

Recently elected school board member Ed Mortimer — whose term has not yet begun — said Alwin shouldn't be blamed for the failed referendum efforts.

"I think people just want the school district to be more accountable and I don't think Mr. Alwin could have done anything to change our minds," he said.

Mortimer is a member of Baraboo Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility, a group that opposed the referendums.

He said cuts made after the referendums failed were not as significant as School Board members warned prior to the vote.

"They said they were going to cut French and cut this and cut that, and they didn't cut them anyway," he said. "They didn't cut anywhere near what they said they were going to cut."

Several of the 2007 evaluations of Alwin were unsigned. The evaluation from School Board Treasurer Garry Cummings was entirely handwritten and didn't use the provided paperwork or point ranking system.

Vodak said the School Board will be looking at its evaluation process to determine whether there is a better way to evaluate an administrator's performance.

"It has to be something that makes sense to the board and it just can't be [subjective]," he said.