The quality of the Mid-Prairie Community School District depends to a significant extent on the effectiveness of its Superintendent. The Superintendent must be a leader in creating learning opportunities that enable and inspire our children to become successful, caring and contributing citizens of our nation and the world.
Toward that end, the Mid-Prairie Board of Directors has adapted and adopted, as the basis for its Superintendent’s job description and annual performance evaluation, the ten performance standards developed by the Iowa Standards for Superintendents. The Superintendent must demonstrate competencies, skills and achievements related to each of the ten standards.
Standard 1—Mission, Vision and Core Values
Educational leaders develop, advocate and enact a shared mission, vision and core values of high-quality education and academic success and well-being of each student. The superintendent needs to:
- Make decisions that align with the established mission and vision of the district.
- Involve a variety of district stakeholders in reviewing and, if needed, revising the district’s mission, vision and core values.
- Supports and ensures a shared understanding of and commitment to mission, vision, and core values within the district and the community.
- Reviews the district’s mission and vision and adjusts in response to changing expectation and opportunities for the district, and changing needs and situations of students.
- Follows current processes to ensure that the district’s vision, mission and goals establish priorities, drive decision and allocation of resources, and reflect student achievement expectations.
Reaches and maintains the Developing Level, and
- Works in conjunction with the school board and other stakeholders to advance or, if necessary, develop the mission for the district that promotes the academic success and well-being of each student.
- Routinely engages the school board, administrators, staff, students, families, and community members in enacting a shared educational vision focused on student preparation for college and career readiness, civic engagement, community contributions, and responsible citizenship.
- In collaboration with members of the district and the community, using relevant data takes action leading to the successful learning and development of each child by improving instructional and organizational practices that align with the vision.
- Continuously reviews and adjusts current processes to ensure that the district’s vision, mission and goals establish priorities, drive decisions and allocation of resources, and reflect student achievement expectations.
- Models and pursues the district’s mission, vision, and core values in all aspects of leadership.
Reaches and maintains the Effective Level, and
- Articulates, advocates, and cultivates core values that define the district’s culture and stress the imperative of student-centered education; high expectations and student support; equity, inclusiveness, and social justice; openness, caring, and trust; and continuous improvement.
- Strategically develops, implements, and evaluates actions to achieve the vision for the district.
- Creates processes to ensure that the district’s vision, mission and goals establish priorities, drive decisions and allocation of resources, and reflect student achievement expectations.
Standard 2—Ethics and Professional Norms
Educational leaders act ethically and according to professional norms to promote each student’s academic success and well-being. The superintendent needs to:
- Act ethically and professionally.
- Act with integrity, fairness, and transparency; promoting trust, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
- Consider each student’s academic success when making educational decisions.
- Demonstrate professional interpersonal and communication skills.
- Acts ethically and professionally in personal conduct, relationships with others, decision-making, and stewardship of the district’s resources, and all aspects of school leadership.
- Acts according to the professional norms of integrity, fairness, transparency, trust, collaboration, perseverance, learning, and continuous improvement.
- Places each student’s academic success and well-being at the center of educational decision-making.
- Assures the values of democracy, individual freedom and responsibility, equity, social justice, and diversity are maintained within the district’s environment.
- Demonstrates professional interpersonal and communication skills.
Reaches and maintains the Developing Level, and
- Models and holds others to expectations of professional norms, including integrity, fairness, transparency, trust, collaboration, perseverance, learning, and continuous improvement.
- Collaborates with other staff to promote each student’s academic success and well-being.
- Safeguards and promotes the values of democracy, individual freedom and responsibility, equity, social justice, community, and diversity.
- Leads with professional interpersonal and communication skills, social-emotional insight, and understanding each student’s and staff member’s background and culture.
- Communicates guidelines and expectations for ethical and professional school board behavior.
Reaches and maintains the Effective Level, and
- Guides members of the district and the school board in operating with the highest degree of integrity, fairness, transparency, and trust.
- Serves as a resource for and model of highly ethical and professional practices.
Standard 3—Equity and Cultural Responsiveness
Educational leaders strive for equity for educational opportunity and culturally responsive practices to promote each students academic success and well-being. The superintendent needs to
- Demonstrate equitable and culturally responsive practices.
- Provide student access to learning experiences that promote equity and cultural responsiveness.
- Demonstrate an understanding of data related to course enrollment, educator effectiveness, student achievement, and school climate as it pertains to equity.
- Demonstrate an understanding of local, state, and federal laws, regulations, or policies that foster equitable practices.
- Communicates equity and cultural responsiveness as a priority.
- Examines district practices and policies for institutional bias.
- Ensures district policies and handbooks reflect equitable practices and processes.
- Demonstrates understanding of data related to equity such as school climate, educator effectiveness, course enrollment, and student achievement.
- Uses data to identify opportunity and achievement gaps among student groups.
- Expects school leader’s work with staff to provide students with accommodations and services in accordance with local, state, and federal laws, regulations, or policies.
- Follows equitable and culturally responsive practices and expects that each student is treated fairly, respectfully, and with an understanding of each student’s culture and context.
Reaches and maintains the Developing Level, and
- Guides the school board in making decisions that align with the district’s core values as they pertain to equity of opportunity and culturally responsive practices.
- Engages in regular policy review with the school board in the development or revision of district policies that promote equitable and culturally responsive practices.
- Aligns and allocates resources to foster equitable student learning environments (this includes but is not limited to access to high-quality instructional materials, effective educators, rigorous courses, and extracurricular experiences).
- Challenges low expectations and confronts behavior that perpetuates inequities.
- Ensures the use of a collaborative goal setting process; including analyzing data, setting goals, developing action steps and monitoring progress for the purpose of addressing equity based issues (e.g. opportunity and achievement gaps, culture, climate, disproportionality, biases.)
- Partners with the staff and school board to prioritize learning experiences that prepare students to live productively in and contribute to the diverse cultural contexts of a global society.
Reaches and maintains the Effective Level, and
- Serves as a model for other educational leaders or state/professional organizations on matters related to equity and/or cultural responsiveness.
- Serves as a coach or mentor for other educational leaders to support the implementation of equitable leadership practices.
- Initiates and navigates courageous conversations about diversity and culture and the impact on student learning; corrects intolerant statements and behaviors. Builds capacity of staff to engage in courageous conversations.
Standard 4—Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment
Educational leaders develop and support intellectually rigorous and coherent systems of curriculum, instruction, and assessment to promote each student’s academic success and well-being. The superintendent needs to:
- Discuss student learning expectations, assessments, instructional practices and available resources with school and district leaders.
- Utilize accountability practices and district data to make curriculum, instruction, and assessment decisions.
- Allocate resources based on a careful examination of student needs.
- Communicate curriculum, instruction, and assessment decisions to the school board and keep them informed of student academic success and well-being.
- Communicates rigorous student learning expectations, assessment information, and instructional practices to the school board, parents, students, teachers, and other stakeholder groups.
- Collaborates with school and district leaders to coordinate resources throughout the system.
- Identifies the resources that exist within the district and community and allocates in a manner to ensure that all students have access to the tools necessary to promote their academic growth.
- Ensures consistent monitoring of curriculum, instruction and assessment using established accountability practices and district data.
Reaches and maintains the Developing Level, and
- Orients each school board member on basic knowledge about curriculum, instruction and assessment and how the current policies support this work.
- Regularly engages the school board in discussions about curriculum, instruction, and assessment to ensure that policy is aligned with current practices.
- Routinely dialogues with the School Improvement Advisory Committee, families and other stakeholders to inform decisions regarding curriculum, instruction, and assessment.
- Reviews system resources in collaboration with school and district leaders to ensure equitable allocation based upon student needs.
- Builds the capacity of the leadership team to support staff in developing and adopting rigorous, culturally responsive learning expectations and curriculum, instruction, and assessments. Coordinates and supports an integrated, tiered system of supports that meets the diverse needs of student learners.
- Creates systems for consistent monitoring and frequent collection of data to ensure accountability and data-informed decisions for the district.
- Promotes and expects the effective use of technology and other resources in the service of teaching and learning to ensure each and every child has opportunities and access to academic growth.
Reaches and maintains the Effective Level, and
- Identifies and pursues innovative and promising practice/s that advance teaching and learning in the district.
- Aligns all aspects of the system (e.g. finances, human resources, professional growth model, instructional resources, social and emotional resources, community resources, time allotments, etc.) to ensure continuous improvement that builds upon successes and challenges in curriculum, assessment and instruction with a relentless focus on results.
- Creates and ensures conditions for intellectually challenging and authentic student learning experiences that are differentiated and personalized.
- Serves as a model for other educational leaders or state/professional organizations on matters related to curriculum, instruction and assessment.
Standard 5—Community of Care and Support for Students
Educational leaders cultivate an inclusive, caring, and supportive school community that promotes the academic success and well-being of each student. The superintendent needs to:
- Apply policies and procedures that build a safe, caring, and healthy district environment.
- Use data to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of academic and socioemotional supports for students.
- Pursue school-community relationships that provide opportunities for increased student learning experiences.
- Seek to learn about the various cultures and languages of the district’s community.
- Ensures policies and procedures are in place to build and maintain a safe, caring, and healthy district environment that meets the academic, social, emotional, and physical needs of each student.
- Creates and sustains a district environment that supports the use of multiple sources of data to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of academic and socioemotional supports for students.
- Models adult-adult, adult-student, student-peer, and school-community relationships that value and support academic learning and positive social and emotional development.
- Knowledgeable of available community resources to support student academic success and well-being.
- Understands the district’s learning environment and the cultures and languages of the community.
Reaches and maintains the Developing Level, and
- Ensures accountability systems are implemented to build and maintain a safe, caring, and healthy school environment that meets the academic, social, emotional, and physical needs of each student.
- Empowers and expects staff to make adjustments to academic and emotional supports based upon evaluation of multiple sources of data.
- Utilizes available resources, including community resources, to provide coherent systems of academic and social supports, services, extracurricular activities, and accommodations to meet the range of learning needs of each student.
- Promotes the development of adult-adult, adult-student, student-peer, and school-community relationships that value and support academic learning and positive social and emotional development.
- Infuses the district’s learning environment with the cultures and languages of the community.
Reaches and maintains the Effective Level, and
- Works in conjunction with the board of education to advocate publicly for an inclusive, caring, and supportive learning community that embraces the learning potential for each student.
- Pursues additional resources to increase support for coherent systems of academic and social supports, services, extracurricular activities, and accommodations to meet the range of learning needs of each student.
- Partners with community organizations to increase support for positive student engagement and social and emotional development.
Standard 6: Professional Capacity of School Personnel
Educational leaders develop the professional capacity and practice of school personnel to promote each student’s academic success and well-being. The superintendent needs to:
- Demonstrate hiring practices that are effective in maximizing human resources.
- Conduct evaluation of educational leaders.
- Provide feedback to educational leaders that inform improvement of their professional practice.
- Participate in professional learning opportunities to enhance personal professional practice.
- Supports the hiring processes at all levels of the school system in accordance with district practices and policies.
- Encourages and ensures data-informed professional learning experiences related to district/building student learning goals for school leaders and teachers.
- Conducts evaluation of administrators in accordance with state and district policies.
- Identifies and participates in personal professional learning opportunities to enhance professional practice.
Reaches and maintains the Developing Level, and
- Develops and operationalizes hiring practices and human capital structures that enable the district to recruit, hire, support, develop, and retain effective and caring school personnel.
- Creates conditions, provides resources, ensures access to job-embedded professional learning, and gives opportunities to connect with outside organizations and/or individuals.
- Fosters continuous improvement of individual and collective instructional capacity to achieve academic and social-emotional outcomes envisioned for each student.
- Leads the implementation of an evaluation and feedback system that supports reflective practice and continuous growth of each educational leader's knowledge, skills, and practice.
- Leads the professional growth of school board members.
- Develops the capacity, opportunities, and support for teacher leadership and leadership of school personnel.
- Promotes the personal and professional health, well-being, and leadership-life fit of school personnel.
- Models a passion for learning by engaging in professional development, personal reflection, study, and improvement.
Reaches and maintains the Effective Level, and
- Engages in professional learning experiences beyond the local district that expand the capacity of others.
- Develops innovative recruitment and retention practices to attract and retain highly qualified personnel.
- Promotes professional growth of others through mentoring and coaching.
Standard 7: Professional Community for Teachers and Staff
Educational leaders foster a professional community of teachers and other professional staff to promote each student’s academic success and well-being. The superintendent needs to:
- Include staff input to inform district decisions.
- Obtain and review staff perception data.
- Understand the purpose and function of teacher leadership within the district.
- Collaborate with district leaders and staff in a way that reflects trust, transparency, and positive intention which improves professional practice.
- Act in accordance with ethical, equitable, and culturally responsive policies and practices.
- Provides opportunities for collaborative examination of practice, collegial feedback, and collective learning.
- Encourages staff-initiated improvement of programs and practices.
- Obtains data on staff perceptions of school practices and procedures.
- Supports a system of teacher leadership within the district.
- Interacts with staff in a way that reflects trust, transparency, and positive intention which improves professional practice.
- Establishes and models behavioral norms that reinforce a supportive team culture, and consistently evaluates the collective effectiveness of the administrative team.
Reaches and maintains the Developing Level, and
- Develops and supports open, productive, caring, and trusting professional relationships among leaders and staff to promote professional capacity and the improvement of practice.
- Empowers, entrusts, and expects all staff to act with collective responsibility for meeting the academic, social, emotional, and physical needs of each student, pursuant to the mission, vision, and core values of the school.
- Sets high expectations for ethical and equitable professional practice; trust and open communication; collaboration, collective efficacy, and continuous individual and organizational learning and improvement.
- Analyzes data on staff perceptions of school practices and procedures to identify areas of concern, sustainability, and growth.
- Delegates leadership responsibilities for the purpose of advancing student learning and social-emotional well-being.
Reaches and maintains the Effective Level, and
- Establishes mutual accountability and responsibility among teachers and staff to promote professional capacity and the improvement of practice.
- Leverages staff expertise to design and implement job-embedded professional learning opportunities in alignment with district goals.
- Distributes leadership opportunities to staff for the purpose of advancing student learning and social-emotional well-being.
- Empowers administrators and staff to engage regularly in deliberations about important district matters.
Standard 8: Meaningful Engagement of Families and Community
Educational leaders engage families and the community in meaningful, reciprocal and mutually beneficial ways to promote each student’s academic success and well-being. The superintendent needs to:
- Communicate and engage with families and members of the community.
- Utilize knowledge of the community’s cultural and social resources to support student learning.
- Advocate for the district and its children.
- Partner with community groups.
- Is approachable, accessible, and welcoming to families and all members of the community.
- Establishes and maintains positive, collaborative, and productive relationships with families and members of the community.
- Communicates effectively on an as needed basis with families and members of the community.
- Engages with the community to understand its strengths, needs and resources.
- Is knowledgeable of the community’s cultural and social resources and employs them as needed.
- Publicly promotes the needs of the district and the importance of education.
- Pursues partnerships with community groups on behalf of students.
Reaches and maintains the Developing Level, and
- Engages in relevant, frequent and open bi-directional communication with families and the community.
- Creates partnerships between the district, community and families to support academic and social emotional learning.
- Understands, values, and leverages the community’s cultural, social, intellectual, and political resources to support student learning and school improvement.
- Provides the district as a resource for families and the community.
- Advocates publicly for the needs and priorities of students, families, and the community.
- Builds and sustains productive partnerships with public and private sectors to promote school improvement and student learning.
Reaches and maintains the Effective Level, and
- Serves as a resource to others throughout the state regarding effective, impactful family and community engagement strategies and programs.
- Realizes district improvement goals related to productive and sustained partnerships.
- Enlists the support of families and the community in advocacy efforts that lead to policy changes and/or improved outcomes for students.
- Envisions and initiates highly effective systemic processes for meaningful feedback from families and community members.
- Educates, encourages, and provides opportunities for members of the school board to engage in meaningful dialogue with a wide variety of school community members.
Standard 9: Operations and Management
Educational leaders manage school operations and resources to promote each student’s academic success and well-being. The superintendent needs to:
- Monitor and manage operations and administrative systems.
- Manage staff resources.
- Ensure monetary and nonmonetary resources are allocated and utilized in a responsible and equitable manner.
- Employ technology to optimize efficiency.
- Demonstrate fair and equitable management of conflict.
- Utilize data and communication systems to deliver information to district stakeholders.
- Manages operations and administrative systems that promote the mission and vision of the district.
- Strategically allocates staff resources and supports building leadership and district directors to meet students’ needs, program goals, and services.
- Allocates monetary and nonmonetary resources to support students’ needs, program goals, and services.
- Manages budgeting and accounting practices to ensure responsible, ethical, and accountable stewardship of the district’s monetary and nonmonetary resources.
- Complies with local, state, and federal laws.
- Consistently demonstrates fair and equitable management of conflict.
Reaches and maintains the Developing Level, and
- Monitors, assesses, and adjusts operations and administrative systems that promote the mission and vision of the district.
- Explores innovative ways to improve strategic allocation of resources to impact programs and services to meet students’ needs and ensure their safety.
- Seeks and acquires additional resources to support students’ needs, program goals and services.
- Builds capacity of school board to ground resource allocations and decisions in the best interests of each student’s academic success, safety, and well-being.
- Employs technology to improve the quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of operations and management.
- Develops and maintains data and communication systems to deliver pertinent information throughout the district.
- Facilitates the understanding of local, state, and federal laws and rights, policies, and regulations among the district community.
- Supports processes among building and district leadership for enrollment management and curricular and instructional articulation.
- Develops and administers systems for fair and equitable management of conflict among students, faculty and staff, leaders, families, and community.
- Creates governance processes and influences internal and external politics with the goal of achieving the district’s mission and vision.
Reaches and maintains the Effective Level, and
- Serves as a resource to others throughout the state in the allocation of resources and effective management procedures.
- Empowers and encourages staff to seek increased efficiencies within and across the system.
Standard 10: School Improvement
Educational leaders act as agents of continuous improvement to promote each student’s academic success and well-being. The superintendent needs to:
- Use research to inform goal-setting process.
- Include stakeholder groups in the development of goals and priorities.
- Implement district goals and priorities.
- Review data to monitor goal progress.
- Communicate with stakeholders on school improvement progress.
- Understands the context of current practices within the school and community to inform decision-making.
- Uses data to identify district priorities and goals to inform organizational improvement and decision-making.
- Stays current on research to inform improvement strategies.
- Communicates district priorities and goals to stakeholders.
- Establishes coherence across priorities in support of district goals and priorities.
- Reviews data to monitor district goals and priorities progress.
Reaches and maintains the Developing Level, and
- In conjunction with the school board establishes priorities and takes action to make the school organization more effective for each student, staff members, families, and the community.
- Engages stakeholders in an ongoing process of evidence-based inquiry, learning, strategic goal setting, planning, implementation, and evaluation.
- Develops systems of data collection, management, analysis to support planning, implementation, monitoring, feedback, and evaluation.
- Develops the capacity of the system to assess the applicability of emerging educational trends, changing district needs, and the findings of research for continuous improvement.
- Promotes coherence among systemic improvement efforts and all aspects of school organization, programs, and services.
- Manages uncertainty, risk, competing initiatives, and the politics of change with courage and perseverance; provides support and encouragement, and openly communicates the importance of outcomes of improvement efforts.
- Promotes curiosity, experimentation, and innovation, and the willingness to initiate and implement improvement throughout the organization.
- Achieves meaningful and sustained gains in school improvement.
- Utilizes risk, competing initiatives, and conflict to improve the academic success and well-being of students.
- Serves as a resource to others throughout the state in school improvement efforts.
Legal Reference: Iowa Code §§ 279.8, .20, 23A.
281 I.A.C. 12.4(4).
Cross Reference: 209 Board of Directors' Management Procedures
301 Administrative Structure
302 Superintendent
Approved: 2-5-68
Reviewed: 5-10-93, 8-9-04, 2-28-11, 1-11-16
Revised: 1-27-97, 10-8-01, 6-10-02, 3-28-2022