Denver Public Schools Superintendent Tom Boasberg will receive at least $17,500 in performance-based bonuses this year after a unanimous school board vote Thursday to approve a mostly positive annual performance evaluation of Boasberg.
But the board postponed a decision on whether to extend Boasberg’s contract by a year, through 2015, agreeing to discuss that further at a meeting in October.
The vote to approve the payout but no extension came after a discussion behind closed doors Thursday that ran more than an hour longer than expected. It was the third time the board has discussed Boasberg’s evaluation.
Board members said the discussions were not contentious but thorough.
“We were all committed to do a much more thorough evaluation than in years past,” said board member Andrea Merida.
Board member Mary Seawell agreed.
“There was no specific area that did end up being contentious; we really are just trying hard,” she said.
In the evaluation, Boasberg is applauded for minimizing budget cuts in classrooms during “fiscally challenging times,” for increasing enrollment and graduation rates, and for keeping DPS academic growth among the strongest in the state.
In addition to the $17,500 bonus, Boasberg will receive $1,562.50 for each of the district’s 16 goals he meets. The board has not determined how many were met because the final numbers have not been calculated on all of them.
Last year, his evaluation showed he met 10 of the 16 goals.
Boasberg’s contract entitles him to an annual raise, but he asked the board to defer that until 2013. As he did last year, Boasberg said he would donate his bonus, and any other money for meeting performance goals, to the Denver Public Schools Foundation, which uses it to fund scholarships.
Boasberg’s yearly salary is $216,000. He donated his most recent $20,000 pay increase to the foundation.
The evaluation makes five requests for areas of improvement, including presenting better data to the board and to the public, and asks him to “continue his efforts to work collaboratively with all board members.”
The document also states there was a lack of movement in closing the achievement gap — a point for improvement in last year’s evaluation as well.
Yesenia Robles: 303-954-1372 or yrobles@denverpost.com
