How Should the TUSD Governing Board Measure the Superintendent's Performance?

John C. Balckshire, Jr. The Accountware Group | October 16, 2026

Student Achievement, Financial Management, Enrollment Planning, and Governance Should Determine Executive Accountability

The Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) Governing Board has one of the most important management oversight responsibilities in Southern Arizona: evaluating the performance of the District's Superintendent.

TUSD is responsible for educating tens of thousands of students, managing hundreds of millions of dollars in public resources, employing thousands of individuals, and maintaining a large network of school facilities.

The Superintendent is the District's chief executive officer. The position requires much more than educational leadership. It requires financial management, strategic planning, operational efficiency, risk management, organizational leadership, and effective communication with the Governing Board.

The fundamental question is straightforward: What measurable results should the Governing Board expect from the Superintendent, and how should it determine whether those results have been achieved?

A superintendent evaluation should not depend primarily on presentations, explanations of activities, or general impressions of leadership.

It should be based on documented results, independently verifiable information, and clear performance expectations established in advance.

For TUSD, this is especially important because the District faces significant challenges involving academic achievement, declining enrollment, financial sustainability, and underutilized school facilities.

1. Student Achievement Must Remain the Central Mission

The most important responsibility of any school district is educating students.

A Superintendent's evaluation should therefore begin with measurable improvements in educational outcomes.

The Governing Board should regularly examine:

• English Language Arts proficiency by grade and school.

• Mathematics proficiency by grade and school.

• Academic growth from one year to the next.

• Four-year high school graduation rates.

• Chronic absenteeism.

• Achievement gaps among student populations.

• Improvement in schools with persistently weak academic performance.

Academic proficiency alone is insufficient.

A school serving students who begin substantially below grade level may achieve meaningful academic growth even if its overall proficiency rate remains low.

The Board should therefore consider both absolute achievement and student growth.

The results should also be compared with similar Arizona school districts, rather than evaluated exclusively against TUSD's previous performance.

A Superintendent should be expected to explain why some schools achieve better results than others and what management is doing to replicate successful instructional practices.

The Board should measure whether students are learning more, not merely whether the District is conducting more educational programs.

2. Financial Sustainability Is a Superintendent Responsibility

Financial management is not solely the responsibility of the Chief Financial Officer.

The Superintendent is accountable for the overall management of the District, including the financial decisions necessary to sustain educational operations.

This distinction is particularly important at TUSD.

The Arizona Auditor General's January 2026 financial-risk assessment identified TUSD among the state's highest-risk school districts.

The District's FY2026 Annual Financial Report also identified a negative Maintenance and Operations (M&O) fund balance of approximately $8.3 million.

The report showed approximately $380.1 million in M&O expenditures compared with $363.0 million in revenues before transfers.

These figures raise important questions about financial planning and the alignment of operating costs with available resources.

The Governing Board should establish measurable financial performance indicators, including:

The Board should require monthly financial reporting and quarterly forecasts covering at least the next 18 months.

A balanced annual budget is not sufficient evidence of sound financial management.

The more important question is whether management has developed a sustainable operating structure that can be maintained without repeatedly exhausting reserves or relying on temporary financial solutions.

3. Declining Enrollment Requires Measurable Management Action

TUSD's declining enrollment is one of its most important strategic challenges.

The District's weighted student count declined from approximately 47,085 in FY2022 to 42,851 in FY2026.

Preliminary FY2027 information indicated a further decline to approximately 40,538.

The demographic forces contributing to declining enrollment are not entirely within management's control.

However, management is responsible for anticipating the financial consequences and responding appropriately.

The Governing Board should evaluate the Superintendent using several enrollment-related measures:

• Student retention: What percentage of eligible returning students continue attending TUSD schools?

• Student capture rate: What percentage of school-age children residing within TUSD boundaries attend District schools?

• Kindergarten enrollment: Is the District attracting a reasonable share of incoming kindergarten students?

• Enrollment forecast accuracy: How closely do original budget projections match actual ADM and weighted student counts?

• Program demand: How many students are waiting to attend successful schools and programs?

• Strategic response: Has management developed a credible multiyear plan that adjusts staffing, facilities, and expenditures to enrollment trends?

The Superintendent should not be evaluated simply on whether enrollment increases or decreases.

The more appropriate measure is whether management understands the causes of enrollment changes, improves the District's attractiveness to families, and adjusts resources responsibly.

4. School Facility Utilization Should Be a Major Management Measure

TUSD operates a large network of school buildings.

Publicly discussed school-reconfiguration materials indicate substantial unused capacity across the District.

Underutilized facilities create financial challenges because buildings continue to require utilities, maintenance, custodial services, security, administration, and capital investment regardless of enrollment.

The Governing Board should monitor:

The Board should not automatically equate low utilization with a need to close a school.

Educational programs, geography, transportation, specialized services, and community needs must be considered.

Nevertheless, the Superintendent should be responsible for developing a comprehensive facilities strategy that considers enrollment projections, educational quality, financial consequences, and community impacts.

A school system experiencing years of declining enrollment cannot indefinitely avoid evaluating whether its facilities remain appropriately sized.

5. Governance and Internal Controls Must Be Part of the Evaluation

One of the most overlooked aspects of superintendent performance is the quality of the District's governance and internal-control environment.

The Superintendent is responsible for establishing and maintaining management processes that provide reasonable assurance that District objectives will be achieved.

The COSO Internal Control Framework identifies five components of effective internal control:

1. Control Environment.

2. Risk Assessment.

3. Control Activities.

4. Information and Communication.

5. Monitoring Activities.

These principles apply to the management of public educational institutions.

The Superintendent should be evaluated on whether management has established effective processes for identifying financial and operational risks, reporting material issues, and implementing corrective actions.

Important performance measures include:

• Timeliness and accuracy of financial reports.

• Identification and communication of significant risks.

• Completion of internal and external audit corrective actions.

• Compliance with applicable laws and reporting requirements.

• Timely delivery of information to the Governing Board and Audit Committee.

• Quality of the District's enterprise risk management process.

• Effectiveness of internal-control monitoring.

A particularly important measure is whether management identifies problems before they become crises.

The Governing Board should not have to discover significant financial problems through outside reports, media coverage, or questions raised by members of the public.

Management should proactively communicate material financial and operational developments.

The Superintendent's responsibility is to bring significant risks and corrective-action recommendations to the Board, not merely to answer questions after Board members identify problems themselves.

6. Employee Retention and Organizational Culture Matter

A Superintendent is also responsible for establishing an organizational environment that supports effective teaching, professional development, accountability, and ethical conduct.

The Governing Board should monitor:

• Teacher retention and turnover.

• Vacancies in critical instructional positions.

• Employee engagement and satisfaction.

• Leadership development and succession planning.

• Completion and quality of employee performance evaluations.

• Timely resolution of substantiated employee complaints.

• Effectiveness of professional development programs.

Independent employee surveys can provide useful evidence.

However, the Board should examine trends and underlying causes rather than relying exclusively on satisfaction scores.

A positive organizational culture is not simply one in which employees report being satisfied.

It is one in which employees understand expectations, receive appropriate support, can raise concerns without retaliation, and are held accountable for performance.

7. Community Confidence and Transparency Should Be Measured

Public school districts depend on the confidence of parents, students, employees, taxpayers, and the communities they serve.

The Superintendent should be evaluated on the quality of management's communication and responsiveness.

Useful measures include parent satisfaction, complaint resolution, timeliness of public financial reporting, responsiveness to information requests, and completion of commitments made during public meetings.

Community engagement should also be evaluated for effectiveness.

Holding meetings is an activity.

Demonstrating that community input was considered, analyzed, and incorporated into decisions where appropriate is a management result.

8. A Proposed Superintendent Performance Framework

I recommend that the Governing Board establish a comprehensive evaluation framework covering seven management responsibilities.

The following allocation is illustrative and would need to be reconciled with the Superintendent's contract, Board policy, and Arizona law.

Arizona law already addresses superintendent performance pay. A.R.S. §15-341(A)(39) provides for performance-pay criteria involving academic gain, parent satisfaction, teacher satisfaction, and other Board-selected criteria, subject to the statutory provisions governing alternative procedures.

The broader management evaluation framework should complement, rather than inadvertently conflict with, those legal requirements.

The important point is that the Governing Board should establish measurable expectations covering the full scope of the Superintendent's executive responsibilities.

9. The Board Needs a Quarterly Superintendent Performance Dashboard

The evaluation process should not be confined to an annual discussion.

The Governing Board should receive a quarterly performance dashboard showing progress against previously established objectives.

A practical dashboard would include approximately 12 principal measures:

Each measure should include:

• The Board-approved target.

• The actual result.

• The previous year's result.

• A comparable-district benchmark, where appropriate.

• Management's explanation of material variances.

• Corrective actions, responsible executives, and completion dates.

Academic assessments may be available only annually, but interim measures should be reviewed throughout the year.

The dashboard should be publicly available to improve transparency.

10. The Board Must Distinguish Management Activity From Management Performance

This distinction is fundamental.

A Superintendent may report that management has developed a strategic plan, conducted community meetings, established committees, hired consultants, or initiated school-reconfiguration studies.

These activities may be useful.

But they are not, by themselves, evidence that management has achieved the District's objectives.

Consider several examples.

• Financial management: Preparing a budget is an activity. Producing sustainable operating results is a performance outcome.

• Enrollment management: Conducting enrollment studies is an activity. Improving forecast accuracy and responding appropriately to enrollment changes are performance outcomes.

• Academic achievement: Implementing instructional programs is an activity. Demonstrating improved student learning is a performance outcome.

• Facilities management: Studying school closures is an activity. Developing and implementing an educationally sound, financially sustainable facilities plan is a performance outcome.

• Internal controls: Preparing corrective-action plans is an activity. Demonstrating that identified weaknesses have been corrected is a performance outcome.

The Governing Board should insist on measurable results while recognizing that some important educational outcomes require several years to develop.

11. What the TUSD Governing Board Should Ask the Superintendent

Given the District's current challenges, several questions deserve particular attention.

• Student achievement: Are TUSD students demonstrating measurable improvement in reading, mathematics, academic growth, and graduation outcomes?

• Financial management: What is the specific timetable for restoring a positive M&O fund balance and sustainable operating results?

• Enrollment: Why have enrollment projections differed from preliminary actual results, and what changes have been made to improve forecasting?

• Facilities: What is the multiyear plan for aligning school capacity and operating costs with projected enrollment?

• Governance: What processes ensure that material financial and operational risks are communicated promptly to the Governing Board and Audit Committee?

• Management accountability: Which executives are responsible for achieving each objective, and how does the Superintendent determine whether their performance is satisfactory?

These questions should be answered with documented evidence and measurable results.

Conclusion: The Governing Board Needs an Executive Performance Management System

The Superintendent of Tucson Unified School District is responsible for much more than administering educational programs.

The position requires leadership of a complex public organization with substantial educational, financial, operational, and regulatory responsibilities.

TUSD's challenges involving student achievement, enrollment, financial sustainability, and school facilities make comprehensive executive performance oversight particularly important.

The Governing Board should establish a formal performance management system that measures results, identifies significant variances, requires corrective action, and provides transparent reporting to the public.

The Board must also recognize that the Superintendent does not control every factor affecting District performance. Demographic changes, state funding decisions, economic conditions, and student needs can materially affect results.

That makes it essential to evaluate both outcomes and the quality of management's response to changing conditions.

The central question should not be how busy the Superintendent has been or how many initiatives management has announced.

It should be whether TUSD is achieving better educational outcomes, maintaining sustainable finances, managing its resources effectively, and correcting identified problems in a timely manner.

Those are the responsibilities that a comprehensive superintendent evaluation should make visible to the Governing Board and the public.

References and Further Reading

• Arizona Revised Statutes, A.R.S. §15-341 — General Powers and Duties of School District Governing Boards.

• Arizona Auditor General, School District Financial Risk Analysis — Tucson Unified School District.

• Arizona Department of Education, TUSD FY2023–FY2027 Budget and Expenditure Reports.

• Tucson Unified School District, FY2026 Annual Financial Report.

• COSO, Internal Control—Integrated Framework (2013).

• The Accountware Group, TUSD's Budget Tells a Sad Story.