 On Sept. 21, YourArlington requested full evaluations of Superintendent Nate Levenson from all School Committee members after Ron Spangler posted his on his Web site. The evaluations received to date are those by Spangler, Jeff Thielman and Denise Burns. Others will be posted if they are received. The responses of three members follow. One has not responded.
YourArlington regards the full evaluations as public documents.
Denise Burns wrote in an e-mail Sept. 21:
"Last night I was ready to send these off when Ron shared his. I recognize that these are public documents and have shared line with one or two people on request or in discussion as to where my position is and why. However, the publishing of these documents concerns me.
"As you know, I did not approve of the emails being released to the public about a personnel issue. I believe that even public employees should be afforded a right to privacy and that these rights were violated.
"While Mr. Levenson's role in the schools makes him a public figure open to a higher level public scrutiny as to his job performance than the teacher or principal, I would like to give Mr. Levenson the same level of respect that I was disappointed wasn't shown to the principal and teacher.
"I don't like the idea of these being accessible by search engines and having a negative impact on Mr. Levenson's future endeavors.
"If Mr. Levenson agrees with the publishing of these documents, I am happy to have him share mine. There's nothing in there I could not say publicly. But I also don't want to hamper his future by publishing these to the web. I will defer that decision to him."
YourArlington e-mailed the superintendent asking what he expects to do. He responded Sept. 24 by asking for a formal request for the document. YourArlington made that request, and School Committee secretary Karen Fitzgerald provided Burns's evaluation.
Sean Garballey wrote Sept. 21:
"I am currently at the United Nations in New York City with a group of students from the Middle School! I will send you an e-mail when I get home!"
YourArlington awaits a response after a followup e-mail Sept. 24.
Sue Sheffler responded Sept. 21:
"I am not inclined to [release the evaluation] ... but if all members are up for this, I'd consider it."
Informed of the current status, Sheffler wrote Sept. 24:
"I am happy to provide an eval on the super, but I will be offering it in the next week. The Super's contract seems very clear that only the composite evals are to be used for reporting out on that specific instrument used by school com for 'official' Scl Com evaluation.
"Any public documents can be viewed in the School Committee office."
School Committee Chair Susan Lovelace wrote Sept. 25:
"I will be in touch later today about the posting of the comment portion of my evaluation."
On Sept. 26, she indicated she was still weighing the matter.
After followup e-mails Sept. 24, no responses have been received from member Joseph Curran.
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