Diana Greene earns high marks from Manatee County School Board after 6 months as superintendent

BRADENTON -- After six months on her first job as superintendent, Diana Greene earned high marks Tuesday from the five Manatee County School Board members.

Board members awarded Greene a 10 -- the highest on a scale from one to 10 -- in almost every category on an evaluation tool used to monitor her first six months as supervisor in Manatee County School District.

"I see a lot of 10s here. This is, however, just a six-month period. I hope that you can maintain that pace," Chairwoman Karen Carpenter said as the board went through her evaluation.

According to the one-year contract given Greene in June, the board was to provide an interim evaluation before Dec. 30 and another one-year evaluation in spring.

Greene also completed a self-evaluation, mostly giving scores of eight in the 16 categories because she said it's only been six months so she doesn't feel confident to award herself any higher.

"First of all, I don't think there's anything in six months that I can say I'm a complete expert in, and I should be well above expectation. I don't have any 10s," she said.

The evaluation tool, which was previously used in the district, included ranking Greene on communication, delegation, organizational sensitivity and integrity.

Integrity was one of only two areas where Greene was awarded a six by board member Bob Gause, although he qualified the ranking saying "integrity" is not a scale issue, it's a yes-or-no situation.

"For me, that's more of a pass-fail," he said, adding if he didn't think Greene had integrity he would have not supported her to become superintendent.

Gause also gave Greene a six on delegation, saying he heard "rumblings that she is remaining too hands-on." Gause said he worries about burnout for Greene for having a hands-on nature in so many different areas.

"That's going to wear her out, I think," Gause said "That's something I worry about. It's intended as a constructive criticism, to watch for it."

Greene said she started out with such intensity on purpose. She said she is still new to the community and tries to attend a lot of events to really become a part of the community.

She said she would never ask someone to do something she wouldn't do herself, so she wants people to see her doing those things.

"I assure you I will find a good balance," she said. "I'm very happy."

For overall performance, Greene scored a perfect 10 from Carpenter and board member Charlie Kennedy, scores of a nine from Gause and board member Dave Miner and an eight from board member John Colon. Greene gave herself an eight for overall performance.

"I hope that we all agree we're off to a very good start here," Carpenter said.

The board and Greene will work to create a new, better evaluation tool before the one-year evaluation comes up.

Meghin Delaney, education reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7081. Follow her on Twitter@MeghinDelaney.

This story was originally published December 8, 2015 at 7:12 PM with the headline "Diana Greene earns high marks from Manatee County School Board after 6 months as superintendent ."