Like the general public, East Baton Rouge Parish School Board members are torn when it comes to Sito Narcisse, the man they hired 29 months ago to lead the school system, with some members rating the superintendent as doing nearly a perfect job and others deeply critical.
The last time they had the chance, three members rated Narcisse extremely highly— two of them giving him perfect scores— while three others rated him relatively poorly. Two other board members gave him good overall ratings, but pointed to areas they thought the veteran educator could improve. And finally, one board member opted not to complete the evaluation.
See the documents yourself:Here are the performance evaluation scores and how to read them
The stark divide in opinion among these nine individuals is found in Narcisse’s most recent annual job evaluation, covering the 2022 calendar year.
The 47-year-old schools leader has heretofore refused to release any information from his annual evaluations. He changed his mind in mid-June when he gave copies of his 2022 evaluation to school board members in Broward County, Fla., where Narcisse recently fell short in his bid to be their next superintendent.
The Advocate has since obtained copies of that 2022 evaluation. It was Narcisse’s second annual evaluation since he was hired in January 2021 to run Louisiana’s second-largest traditional school district, home to more than 40,000 students.
Narcisse declined to comment to The Advocate.
The board . Six of the board members who participated in that process are no longer in office— four had just lost re-election bids and two more opted not to run again. The six individuals who replaced them won’t conduct their own evaluation of Narcisse until later this year. Narcisse's contract expires June 30, 2024.
Three members who evaluated Narcisse that night are still on the board— Mark Bellue, Mike Gaudet and Dadrius Lanus— but all either declined or did not respond to requests for comment. All three voted to hire Narcisse and have historically been among his strongest supporters.
Sunshine State reveal
Narcisse’s previous refusal to release any information about his annual evaluations was a notable break from tradition. Going back decades, past public school superintendents in Baton Rouge have agreed to release their overall scores as well as average scores by category.
Narcisse did an about-face on June 14, the day before he sat for a 90-minute job interview with the board that oversees Broward County schools, the sixth-largest school district in the country. Narcisse came in second out of three finalists, receiving two out of nine votes.
The Baton Rouge evaluation he gave to Broward officials shows Narcisse earning an overall composite score of 3.42 on a 4-point scale. That’s slightly below the 3.56 composite score earned in December 2019 by Narcisse’s predecessor, then Supt. Warren Drake. Those were the best marks of Drake’s five-year tenure.
Narcisse revealed more to Broward about his evaluation than Drake and his forebears revealed publicly about their respective evaluations, specifically how individual board members rated him.
The results are anonymous. Instead of names, the nine board members are identified by nine letters of the alphabet, A through I.
The Advocate calculated average scores for each board member. Here is how they rated Narcisse:
- A: 4.00
- B: 2.96
- C: 4.00
- D: 3.55
- E: 3.96
- F: 2.93
- G: 3.71
- H: Left blank.
- I: 2.09
They used a four-point scale: 4 “exceeds criteria”; 3 “satisfactory”; 2 “requires improvement”; and 1 “unsatisfactory.” Board members could also check “N/A,” defined as “cannot be judged,” but none appear to have done so.
Narcisse sent Broward a handful of documents connected with his 2022 evaluation: a blank evaluation form with 56 questions, a scoresheet with results broken down by board member, a list of Narcisse’s board-identified strengths and “areas of improvement,” and a breakdown of .
All but one board member answered the questions on the evaluation form while all but two offered comments that gave examples of strengths as well as areas where Narcisse could improve.
Of the 10 performance targets, Narcisse was judged to have achieved eight of them. Consequently, he earned $8,000 out of a possible $10,000 in performance pay. He earned that on top of his $255,000 annual salary.
‘Most held back’
Dawn Collins, who opted not to run for re-election last year, was arguably Narcisse’s most outspoken critic. That might suggest she is one of the three low-scoring board members. But Collins won’t say which letter of the alphabet corresponds to her and is not bothered if people try to guess.
“Speculate away,” she said. “They’ll speculate anyway.”
Collins recalled the results of 2022’s evaluation was “slightly” better overall than the one for 2021, Narcisse’s first year as superintendent. But Collins noted that board members A, C and E all gave the superintendent perfect or near perfect scores, which she argues skewed the results in Narcisse's favor. She said she’s doubtful there’s a better evaluation method since people can’t be forced to answer questions honestly.
“It’s political and you can’t get around that. Even with good questions… all 4s?” she asked incredulously. “Lie on top of lies.”
Board member Evelyn Ware-Jackson, who lost a bid for a fourth term, voted to hire Narcisse but became increasingly estranged from him over time. She said she recalls the Dec. 15 meeting with Narcisse about his evaluation but does not remember seeing the list of board member comments or the review of Narcisse’s performance targets.
“It's ironic that it took (Narcisse’s) strong desire to leave EBR for another district for the public here in EBR to finally get the transparency that they asked for during his evaluation process,” Ware-Jackson said.
She does recall the high ratingsNarcisse received from some board members, surprising her since members had shared concerns with Narcisse during his first evaluation and there had been problems since.
“It seemed most held back and were very generous in the scores,” she said.
Letters don’t match
The comments about Narcisse ranged bare bones to expansive.
One board member pointed to a "strong strategic plan” as a Narcisse strength and “community outreach” as an area where Narcisse could improve.
Another board member said Narcisse’s strengths are “public speaking for events” and “effective marketing for special programs.”
This same board member, though, had strong concerns: “Accurate communications have worsened from the last evaluation and remain in need of improvement. Sincere interest in student and parental concerns is lacking. Interest in student and effective actions to improve conditions and student performance at D&F schools is lacking.”
Ware-Jackson said those last comments are hers. The document, however, attributes them to Board member E. Unlike Ware-Jackson, the Board member E on the scoresheet gave Narcisse a near perfect score.
“Clearly the documents sent to Broward County do not match board member comments to scores, at least in my case,” she said.
Ware-Jackson said her best guess is that “I'm more likely B or F,” board members who rated Narcisse overall with scores of 2.96 and 2.93, respectively.
Although the scoresheet and the comments list can’t be matched, the fact that all but two board members made critical comments of Narcisse suggests at least one of the perfect/near perfect rating board members was less than honest in their numerical ratings.
Best and worst
Narcisse fared best on a question that asked whether he “maintains good relations with governmental, educational, business, and community leaders.” All but one board member, Board member I, gave him a 4 on that question— this board member in fact gave Narcisse no 4s at all.
Board members also rated him highly on implementing he spearheaded, which calls for a standardized reading curriculum as well as standard performance measures and indicators across all schools.
Two more questions were at the same high level: one dealing with whether he “devotes time and energy effectively to the district” and another about him meeting twice a year with administrators for their evaluations.
On those three questions, board members B and I gave him his only 3s.
Narcisse did worst on two questions, earning scores of 2.88 on each.
One question asked whether Narcisse “gains the respect and support of the community in the conduct of the operation of the school system.” The other asked if the superintendent “produces major positive changes at failing schools by using proven methods as well as innovative ideas.”
The three board members who rated Narcisse perfect or nearly perfect were the only ones who gave Narcisse 4s on those two questions.