Sprinkles achieves ‘Accomplished’ ratings on annual evaluation

Kelly Sprinkles is shown at the Board table during the June 2019 meeting. Carrie Smith is shown to left.

Kelly Sprinkles is shown at the Board table during the June 2019 meeting. Carrie Smith is shown to left.The Knox County Board of Education went into closed session during Monday night’s meeting to have preliminary discussions about Superintendent Kelly Sprinkles’ performance during the past school year.  Annually the Board is required to evaluate the superintendent on seven standards with ratings ranging from exemplary to growth required.

Returning back to open session, all Board members present except for Kevin Hinkle, who was just appointed to the Board and abstained from voting, were in agreement with the summative evaluation that rated Sprinkles accomplished in all areas.

“Working in conjunction with the Board and listening to our school leaders, Knox County continues to make significant improvements, and this evaluation represents all who are working hard each day to make our system great,” said Sprinkles after reviewing the evaluation.

According to Sprinkles the Board’s evaluation of him was in line with his own self-evaluation where he identified recent initiatives, projects, and work as well as those upcoming as evidence of his leadership and the success of the entire district.

“The work continues to ensure that every graduate is globally prepared for jobs that don’t even exist yet, but have the work ethic and basic knowledge to be prepared for life,” stated Sprinkles.

The Board was in agreement with Sprinkles’ vision for the district.  The only area for improvement that they identified was in the managerial leadership standard that consists of scheduling, resources, and problem-solving.  The Board cited that the Superintendent should resolve the graduation location early next year.  Sprinkles says that he is already working on it.

“We want the senior class to have a say on the location of their graduation, then we will go from there to figure out the logistics of how to make it happen,” said Sprinkles.  “The discussions have already started and we hope early in the school year to be able to announce the plans for each school.”

Additional Resources

Superintendent Leadership Plan from the Kentucky Department of Education (.pdf document)

Evaluative Standards

Standard 1: Strategic Leadership
The superintendent creates conditions that result in strategically reimaging the district’s vision, mission and goals to ensure that every student who graduates from high school,
is globally competitive in postsecondary education and/or the workforce, and is prepared for life in the 21st century. The superintendent creates a community of inquiry that
challenges the community to continually repurpose itself by building on the district’s core values and beliefs about the preferred future and then developing a vision.

Standard 2: Instructional Leadership
The superintendent supports and builds a system committed to shared values and beliefs focused on teaching and learning where performance gaps are systematically
eliminated over time and every student graduates from high school college- and career-ready.

Standard 3: Cultural Leadership
The superintendent understands and acts on the important role a system’s culture has in the exemplary performance of all schools. He/she works to understand the people in
the district and community as well as their history and traditions as they move forward to support and achieve district goals. The superintendent must be able to improve the
district culture, if needed, to align the work of adults with the district’s goals of improving student learning and infusing the work with passion, meaning and purpose.

Standard 4: Human Resource Leadership
The superintendent ensures the district is a professional learning community with processes and systems in place that result in recruitment, induction, support, evaluation,
development and retention of a highly effective, diverse staff. The superintendent uses distributed leadership to support teaching and learning, plans professional development,
and engages in district leadership succession planning.

Standard 5: Managerial Leadership
The superintendent ensures that the district has processes and systems in place for budgeting, staffing, problem solving, communicating expectations, and scheduling that
organize the work of the district and give priority to student learning and safety. The superintendent must solicit resources (both operating and capital), monitor their use and
assure the inclusion of all stakeholders in decisions about resources so as to meet the 21st century needs of the district.

Standard 6: Collaborative Leadership
The superintendent, in concert with the local board of education, designs structures and processes that result in broad community engagement with support for and ownership
of the district vision. Acknowledging that strong schools build strong communities, the superintendent proactively creates, with school and district staff, opportunities for
parents, community members, government leaders and business representatives to participate with their investments of resources, assistance and goodwill.

Standard 7: Influential Leadership
The superintendent promotes the success of teaching and learning by understanding, responding to, and influencing the larger political, social, economic, legal, ethical,and
cultural context. From this knowledge, the superintendent works with the board of education to define mutual expectations, policies and goals to ensure the academic success
for all students.