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Members of the Coffee County Board of Education approved its annual evaluation for Director of Schools Dr. Charles Lawson during its regular meeting June 12.

Board member Larry Crabtree said the board opted to scrap the existing evaluation form used for the last decade with 51 questions and replace it with something more manageable and concise.

“…What we discovered when the committee met and worked together to come up with this new evaluation, so many of the 51 points were asking the same question over and over again and many of them were subjective and didn’t have any way of measuring objectively what the results should be,” Crabtree said during the meeting.

The new director’s evaluation features 16 questions and includes feedback from not only the Coffee County Board of Education, but also district administrators and teachers.

Lawson, who has been with the district since the summer of 2019, received an overall evaluation score of 3.67 on a five-point scale.

Board Chairman Dr. Gary Nester said 50% of Lawson’s overall score was from the board’s survey, while an administrator survey accounted for 15% and a teacher survey accounted for another 15% of the score. TCAP test scores accounted for the remaining 20% of the score.

Board member Freda K. Jones said she would like to see a summary document featuring Dr. Lawson’s perceived strengths and weaknesses in his role as director of schools incorporated into the annual evaluation.

“We can accept the evaluation, but I think as a school board we need to do a little bit more than just say we are accepting the evaluation at 3.67,” she said.

Nester agreed that because the evaluation is new for this year, there is nothing to compare it too, so it could be difficult to determine what exactly the overall score represents.

“The biggest problem is this was basically a new evaluation this year and so what does 3.67 mean, well we don’t know,” he said.

Board member Brent Parsley agreed that the areas Lawson scored highest and lowest in in the evaluation could be pulled from the document to create something a little more workable.

“I would think you would take all the teacher, the administrator and the board and consolidate all of those into one document,” Parsley said. “(Jones) is saying take the strengths and weaknesses from those and combine them into one document for (Lawson) to use as a tool.”

Crabtree said he did not believe it would be difficult for the committee that oversaw the director’s evaluation to accomplish that.

Lawson said during the meeting he believes the new director’s evaluation to be a “step up” from what was utilized by the district in the past, but there are some changes that still need to be made.

“As far as the process, it was very satisfactory for me,” he said.

Board member Jennifer Peacock Hodge asked Lawson if he were surprised by the results or if they were what he was expecting.

“I am sure that was a very vulnerable position to be in being evaluated,” she said. “I know I wouldn’t like that.”

Lawson said he understood why he received lower scores in certain areas and higher scores in others.

“There was nothing in particular that really jumped out at me as a discrepancy that I didn’t really understand,” he said.

Nester said during the meeting that discussions regarding a possible renewal of Lawson’s contract, which was last renewed in 2021 for the 2024-2025 school-year could possibly be added to the board agenda for its next meeting July 11.