Sarasota Schools Superintendent Asplen left on shaky ground despite 'highly effective' evaluation

Two Sarasota County School Board members gave Superintendent Brennan Asplen less than stellar marks for his annual performance evaluation, despite an overall positive review, raising red flags about his job security as a new conservative majority is set to take over this month.

Three of the five School Board members, Tom Edwards, Shirley Brown and Jane Goodwin, gave Asplen "highly effective" ratings. But Karen Rose gave Asplen just an overall "effective" rating while Bridget Ziegler rated him a "needs improvement" assessment.

New board members Robyn Marinelli and Tim Enos, who aligned with Ziegler and Rose in their successful campaigns this year, will be sworn in late this month, replacing Brown and Goodwin, who, with Edwards had formed a controlling policy-making majority for the last two years.

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The School Board is now set for a potential 4-1 conservative majority alignment, with four members who have been openly critical of a superintendent who has achieved consecutive "highly effective" evaluations and overseen a district that maintained its coveted "A" rating from the state despite the negative impact of COVID-19 on students' test scores.

Barry Dubin, the executive director of the Sarasota Classified Teachers Association, said he thinks the newly constituted board could move to fire Asplen.

"It looks to me like this is more about politics than it is about education," Dubin said. "This new School Board was supposed to deliver us from politics and instead it seems like they're getting more and more (political)."

Firing a superintendent following two "highly effective" evaluations would send the message that politics comes before education in Sarasota County, Dubin said.

Asked about Asplen's future under the incoming board, Ziegler said his future is up to him.

"Dr. Asplen continues to be in a position with great opportunity. How or whether he chooses to seize it remains up to him," she said.

Asplen's evaluation is tied to his salary. The superintendent makes $227,000 and earned a raise of $6,810 based on his previous year's evaluation, which was a unanimous "highly effective" rating.

During his remarks at Tuesday's meeting on the evaluation, Asplen said he appreciated feedback from the board members, saying that it gave him perspective from five different backgrounds. However, he said he'd be "remiss" if he didn't say he was disappointed at the number of areas categorized as "needs improvement."

Asplen spent nearly 30 minutes addressing points raised by Rose and Ziegler. Specifically, he refuted a comment from Ziegler's rating saying he was wading too much into politics.

"All I've said since I've been here up here is, 'We gotta get out of the politics,'" Asplen said.

Ziegler's evaluation cited Asplen as needing improvement in one section that cited the board's attorney, Dan DeLeo, as having a negative impact on the community. Asplen responded by noting that the attorney is hired and fired by the board, and adding that DeLeo isn't his responsibility.

Ziegler commented on her "needs improvement" evaluation of the superintendent at the meeting, saying she knows the difficult position Asplen is put in by this board which has been divided for years by high-profile policy decisions, including mask mandates during the COVID pandemic and the fate of Asplen's predecessor.

"I think Dr. Asplen comes forward with a very good moral compass," Ziegler said. "I don't dismiss how challenging it is to probably be a superintendent on this particular board."

While she rated the superintendent as needing improvement in four of the 10 categories, she rated Asplen as "highly effective" in fiscal stewardship and curriculum planning and development. In her evaluation, she said she appreciates the superintendent's approach to using federal grants, where they're treated as non-recurring.

Rose spoke briefly about her "effective" overall evaluation Tuesday, saying she felt comfortable with her rating. Despite a higher overall rating than Ziegler's, Rose's evaluation also had four "needs improvement" ratings but no "highly effective" ratings, as Ziegler's did.

Under the leadership culture category of her evaluation, Rose pinned division over public comment to the board on the superintendent.

"There is apparent polarization in the school community as reflected in public comment at School Board meetings. There is no visible strategy to engage and unite community members," Rose wrote in her evaluation.

The School Board changed public comment policy early this year, and it became an issue in the campaign.

Brown, who is retiring from the Board at the end of her term this month, said she fluctuated between "effective" and "highly effective" for several categories until Hurricane Ian. She said his handling of the damage from Ian solidified her complete "highly effective" rating.

Asplen has the district heading in the right direction to compete for the top spot among Florida school districts, Brown said.

"You're giving us the tools to get there," Brown said to Asplen. "I hope that the new board will allow you to continue in that progress."

Follow Herald-Tribune Education Reporter Steven Walker on Twitter at @swalker_7. He can be reached at sbwalker@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Sarasota School Board: Some members critical of superintendent in ratings