Detroit School Superintendent’s annual evaluation is a big mess

As Detroit Public Schools crumble with a meager budget and ridiculously high dropout rate, you’d think school officials would stop the bickering and try to get some work done.

But the feud between the superintendent and the school board goes on, and I can’t help but think: what about the kids?

Superintendent Connie Calloway was not happy when the school board held a meeting Wednesday night to evaluate her first year on the job and possibly vote her out.

In fact, she called it an “illegal action” because she said she never agreed to the review, nor did she agree to the goals specified in the evaluation. She claimed it violated her contract.

She said she was notified about the annual evaluation meeting in a letter from the board while she was out of town on business.

The board, on the other hand, claimed other attempts to schedule the meeting with Calloway’s permission got no response.

When will they get it together and start doing their jobs instead of getting into catty disagreements?

Earlier in the week Calloway sent a memo to the board claiming that they were making it hard to get things done and creating a ‘hostile work environment.’

Why does the board dislike her so? What did she do but expose a $408 million deficit that was previously in the dark? Maybe that’s just it.

I’m sure lots of school boards don’t like their boss, but they get work done, such as successful annual evaluations without all the drama.

It’s unclear what they accomplished Wednesday night because it was a closed meeting and any conclusions made during the meeting have not been released to the public.

So who’s to blame for this mess?  There’s no question that up to now, both parties have acted childishly.