Kyrene School District Governing Board will decide on Superintendent Laura Toenjes’s mid-year performance pay at its Dec. 12 meeting.
The meeting will be held at Kyrene Aprende Middle School, 777 N. Desert Breeze Blvd., at 5:30 p.m.
Toenjes has served as the district superintendent since November 2020, after former Kyrene Superintendent Jan Vesely retired. As superintendent, she and her team are responsible for the long-term planning of the district’s instructional and operational decisions.
Performance-based compensation, if any, is awarded by a majority vote by the governing board, following an assessment that the superintendent has “made satisfactory progress toward the achievement of performance goals and benchmarks,” according to a district report.
Each year, the board and superintendent are required to establish these goals by Sept. 30.
“The board shall assess superintendent’s performance on not less than a quarterly basis for the purpose of determining whether (the) superintendent has earned performance-based compensation and when payment will be made,” the report stated.
As stated on the meeting agenda, it is recommended that the board approve Toenjes’s mid-year performance pay based on the current status of the superintendent’s progress in her goals.
For the 2023-24 school year, the superintendent’s goals are developing a social-emotional learning and wellness policy and procedure, engaging with a diverse group of stakeholders to create a “portrait of a Kyrene teacher,” and participating with a district team in an in-depth professional development program.
The board report stated that of the three goals, all are in progress and on track to be completed by June 2024.
Supporting the Strategic Plan initiative of Future Ready Schools, Kyrene’s development of a social-emotional learning policy will be adopted by the final board meeting in June, reflecting the district’s commitment to “promote a system-wide whole learner focus, embedding the seven elements of the Whole Learner Framework.”
In terms of the superintendent’s progress in this goal, multiple feedback sessions have been held to engage with Kyrene students, families, staff and other community members, with more feedback sessions to come in January and February.
“After all feedback has been collected and analyzed a draft of the policy will be developed and a draft will be presented to the governing board by the end of March,” the report stated.
Looking at the superintendent’s second goal for creating the portrait of a Kyrene teacher, this initiative seeks to identify the specific skills, knowledge and other characteristics needed to support quality teaching and learning.
According to the report, district leaders have developed a process for connecting the student and educator portraits and feedback sessions will be held starting in January and will run through March.
Feedback from the Kyrene community at large will be collected, and once completed, district staff will draft the educator portrait.
As for the final goal relating to professional development, the report stated that as of December, the district team has completed two training webinars and two coaching sessions to build on the team’s skills in analyzing and assessing programs and initiatives to “determine academic return on investment.”
Those on the district team have additional training coaching sessions scheduled for January, where they will continue working on an early literacy practice project that applies what they’ve learned in the development program.
“Once the project is completed the team will develop the structures to embed the academic return on investment process for ongoing district use,” the report stated.
Reporter Caroline Yu can be reached at cyu@iniusa.org. To voice your opinion on this story, connect with us at AzOpinions@iniusa.org.
Meet Caroline Caroline Yu joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in 2020 as a summer intern covering Scottsdale. As an intern, she continued her coverage of Scottsdale, Paradise Valley and Tempe. After graduating in 2022, Caroline became a full-time reporter for Scottsdale and Paradise Valley. She is currently reporting for the Tempe market.
Community: She is a supporter of the environment and tries to get involved with related community events.
Education: Arizona State University with a BA in Journalism and Mass Communications, with a minor in French.
Random Fact: She used to be a ballet dancer for 10 years.
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