Waukegan Community Unit School District 60 Superintendent Theresa Plascencia will receive a $17,841 performance bonus for the past term — for exceeding three of five goals set for her — but some on the Board of Education want to calculate it differently next year.
Basing Plascencia’s annual bonus on key performance indicators (KPIs) as measured by the Illinois State Board of Education’s (ISBE) annual report card of districts statewide, she met or exceeded three of the five goals set for her.
The District 60 Board of Education voted 5-1 to award Plascencia her contractual bonus for the past school year at a regularly scheduled meeting Tuesday at the Lincoln Center administration building in Waukegan.
Plascencia has the opportunity to earn a bonus each year in addition to her annual salary of approximately $300,000. The goals for the bonus paid on the report-card-based results were set a year ago. Those for the current term were established recently.
Each year, the ISBE issues a report card on each school and district in the state with a multitude of statistics. Plascencia’s bonus was tied to increases in five of those categories as determined by a majority of the board a year ago.
Improving the parentage of freshmen on track to graduate, seniors who earn their diplomas, third through eighth graders who improve reading scores, increasing overall school ratings and more diverse learners in regular classrooms, earn bonus points.
Board member Anita Hanna, who was the only one voting against the added pay, said the bonus should be based on more than KPIs. Though there is progress in reading achievement, more than the five indicators should go into allowing or denying a bonus, she said.
“As a district, we are more than KPIs and, as a district, we should be looking at the whole big picture of our unit school district,” Hanna said. “Looking at the whole district, I don’t think it would warrant a bonus right now.”
Brandon Ewing, the board president, said all of the standards that can lead to the superintendent’s bonus are student-related. They tell a story of the youths’ progress, and the overall health of the district.
“These KPIs are tied to students,” he said. “They are not random numbers. We did not pick them out of a hat. They are numbers that show student growth. I just wanted to make that crystal clear.”
Board member Christine Lensing, who did not start her term when the goals were set, said she is not happy with the targets, but performance metrics should not be changed after they are set by a majority board vote. She said she would look for a future modification.
“If the board agrees these are what the goals are, we have to hold ourselves accountable,” she said. “If we’re not happy with it, we need to set more aspiring goals for our superintendent to reach. I want to set a higher bar.”
When the board set the five KPIs a year ago, they asked Plascencia to increase the freshmen on track to graduate from 65% to 67%. It grew to 67.5%. The graduation rate did better than planned, growing from 73.3% to 78.1%, nearly five percentage points beyond the goal.
Along with improved graduation and the number of freshmen on track to graduate, Plascencia exceeded her requirement of increasing the number of diverse learners in regular classrooms 80% of the time. With a 46% goal, they were there 51.6% of the time.
Plascencia fell short of the goal of improving reading scores for third through eighth graders on statewide tests, as well as improving the overall classification of at least one school from its current level of commendable, targeted or comprehensive.
None of the district’s 23 schools were given an improved classification. While reading scores improved 2.3%, they were 0.6% shy of the target.
Earning a bonus for the current school year will take increased improvement over what was achieved for the past 12 months, as 4% more seniors must graduate from Waukegan High School, 2% more of the freshmen must be on track to graduate, reading scores must grow another 1.7%, 2% more diverse learners must be in regular classrooms 80% of the time, and one school must improve its designation.
Voting for the bonus were Ewing and Lensing, along with board members Adriana Gonzalez, Jeff McBride and Carolina Fabian. Board member Rick Riddle passed since he was not present at the meeting when the goals were established.