Park City School Board member Meredith Reed was as surprised as anyone last month when board President Andrew Caplan said during an interview on KPCW’s “Local News Hour” that he and his fellow members were very happy with Superintendent Jill Gildea’s performance and fully intended planned to renew her contract for two more years in August.
Reed said she hadn’t signed off on that at all. For her, elected in 2022, there hasn’t been a performance review she’d consider sufficient for Gildea since the superintendent started with the district in 2018.
“There was no formal or informal input solicited from the board members, and there was no structure to provide feedback or evaluation of the superintendent’s performance,” she said.
Nicholas Hill, the other board member whose term runs through 2026, agrees.
“Meredith and I expressed concerns about the review process and about the lack of visibility into relevant benchmarking for the very generous package the superintendent receives,” he said.
Even so, on June 20, 2023, the board unanimously approved Gildea’s current contract in a consent agenda — a clump of actions elected boards don’t often discuss individually — and Reed said that at the time she believed it was only a compensation raise.
In a closed session in which the renewal was discussed, she said the conversation about that decision was heated at times, and not something the board saw eye to eye on.
Ultimately, the board left it on the agenda.
“At that time I questioned why it was on the consent agenda when we hadn’t discussed her performance as a board,” Hill said. “Essentially, the answer I got was that performance discussions would have happened in the fall of ’22, before I joined the board, and the vote to approve a new contract was a necessary formality.” Gildea got a pay raise in the agreement, as well.
He said the discussion led to a more robust process for this year’s review with involvement from Utah School Board Association Executive Director Richard Stowell, though Hill still said the review is lacking in breadth and compensation benchmarking.
Reed said the process has improved, but she still doesn’t find it sufficient. From what she’s learned from past years, the reviews have been fairly lackadaisical according to her standards, she said.
Among other shortfalls she sees in the evaluations, Reed said they haven’t taken into consideration the thoughts of district employees other than part-time board members, something she thinks should be an important component.
Incumbents Wendy Crossland and Anne Peters — like Caplan, incumbents who have dropped their reelection bids this year — haven’t spoken publicly about their views on the review process or their views of the superintendent.
Gildea in a July 5 email to Reed listed what she considered performance reviews since 2019, the year after the superintendent began with the Park City School District.
“For ’19, we had a first year interview and identified areas of success and areas of focus,” the email says. “For ’21, ’22, ’23, ’24, we prepared a portfolio highlighting BOE key priorities and review of goals by departments along with a progress chart and areas of focus.”
Public Information Officer Colton Elliot said formal reviews took place on June 18, 2019; June 15, 2021; June 21, 2022; and June 20, 2023.
Neither he nor Gildea in her email to Reed mentioned a performance evaluation in 2020, when Covid broke out.
Elliot also didn’t specify what the reviews entail.
Hill and Reed said they haven’t voted to approve any review.
“The (Board of Education) leadership provides insights, mid-course directions and ongoing feedback monthly during leadership meetings with the superintendent,” Elliot said.
He said the discussions involve goals and end-of-year results and declined to speak further about the process.
As personnel matters protected by state law from public disclosure, none of the performance reviews have been shared with the public.
“A portfolio of priorities and goals is not a performance evaluation, which is a formal process that measures an employee’s work and results based on their job responsibilities,” Reed said.
Caplan has faced public backlash but hasn’t hasn’t indicated he’s changed his plans extend Gildea’s contract in next month’s board meeting with the majority of board members who will not be on the board in 2025.
Unless write-in candidates file, next year his District 2 seat will go to Eileen Gallagher. Peters’ District 1 spot will be taken by Susan Goldberg, and Crossland’s District 3 representation will go to either Danny Glasser or Kathleen Britton in the Nov. 5 election.