Owensboro Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Nick Brake received his final superintendent evaluation with exemplary scores across the board. As Brake prepares to leave OPS after the Fall 2019 semester, each board member submitted an individual evaluation based on Brake’s performance over the past year. In a summative evaluation report, where Brake’s accomplishments spanned five pages, board members said replacing the OPS superintendent would be “a formidable task.”
The purpose of the evaluation was to determine the growth of the superintendent using the seven standards associated with the effectiveness of a school administrator — strategic leadership, instructional leadership, cultural leadership, human resource leadership, collaborative leadership and influential leadership.
With four possible indicators–ranging from “growth required” to “exemplary,” board members deemed Brake exemplary for each of the seven standards.
Board Vice-Chair Melissa Decker compiled the summative report and discussed the findings at a Thursday board meeting.
“We all seemed to make many of the same comments. Individually, we each fill out an evaluation form, Dr. Brake fills out a self-evaluation, and those are compiled together,” she said. “Over and over, I read people’s words about what an excellent communicator Dr. Brake is, and how strongly he works to support our children, our families, our community, our staff, the board–everyone.”
Described as having excellent managerial skills, even while juggling all the different positions at OPS, Decker said it had been “an honor” to compile the summative report that revealed all of Brake’s hard work and innovation.
“Not every school board’s lucky enough to be in such tight agreement about their superintendent,” she said.
The report mentioned many of Brake’s yearlong accomplishments, which ranged from his implementation of district-wide all-day preschool and innovation innovation initiatives that include Owensboro Innovation Academy, Bluegrass Scholars Program and the iMiddle School, to his collaborative leadership initiatives with Owensboro Community and Technical College and WKU, which have resulted in higher numbers of college enrollment for OPS students.
“Nearly 50 percent of our high school students are earning college credit, their overall composite ACT scores continue to improve, and 62 percent of them are college and career ready,” the report states. “Dr. Brake leads our district in eliminating performance gaps and achieving instructional goals; the works of the Literary Taskforce, Owensboro Reads, implemented a district-wide reading program with benchmarks and common reading protocol for grades K-5.”
Under Brake’s leadership, OPS received a $700,000 Striving Readers Grant for secondary literacy efforts. Teacher’s salaries have increased by 7.4 percent during his tenure, and new partnerships created between OPS and other community organizations — such as one with RiverValley Behavioral Health Children’s Hospital to create mental health services for OPS students — were not overlooked by the OPS board.
Even more, under Brake’s leadership, OPS has been named a National District of Distinction and has been recognized by the New Tech Network.
“Dr. Brake has spent an untold number of hours pushing our district to reach new heights while continuing to maintain past success,” the report states. “He is going to be terribly missed by students and their families, the staff, the teachers in our system, education officials from across the state, our board, and many others.”
