Trustees give Benton Harbor Area Schools' superintendent ineffective rating

BENTON HARBOR, Mich. — Benton Harbor Area Schools’ board of trustees expressed little confidence in Superintendent Dr. Shelly Walker Wednesday.

After being away from the district for about a month, Dr. Walker returned before the board to quite a bit of criticism.

This comes on the heels of Tuesday’s work session where the board learned the district’s special education program had been noncompliant for four years.

“We’ve been seeing some discrepancies from last night to today so everything came to fruition,” said trustee Joseph Taylor.

The board was tasked with grading her performance in her second annual evaluation.

The results showed this board had concerns about her progress.

Dr. Walker ended up with a score of 36, an ineffective rating, by the board of trustees.

That’s much lower than the 75 score she got in 2017.

Trustees say, they changed their decision last year after originally finding her minimally effective for the district.

“It was going to be low last year and so we were on the bubble of 60’s last year but with some mediation she ended up with an effective evaluation,” said Taylor.

Trustees believe they got it right this time around.

Their biggest concerns were her lack of communication with the board, her handling of the district’s finances and student attendance.

“Work needs to be done, like any job that bears a responsibility and that’s our CEO and our CEO runs the district so we hope that we can improve that score so our district can be run as it should be,” said Taylor.