Murray's contract lengthened by year.

A 1-year contract extension for Superintendent Mike Murray was approved last week by the Suttons Bay Board of Education.

Board members voted unanimously Monday, March 10 to extend Murray’s contract through the 2010-11 school year. Action came after a detailed look at his performance as it relates to seven “correlates of effective schools” developed by the University of Oklahoma’s Center for Effective Schools. Specifically, the board considered Murray’s leadership in providing a safe and orderly environment, a climate of high expectations for success, and a clear and focused mission for the district.

A committee of trustees Tom Nixon and Teri Keilty presented results from a community survey, conducted at Murray’s request, to examine his job performance in the related areas.

The survey had responses from 182 people, and most reacted favorably to Murray’s efforts to create a “safe and orderly environment” in which students can learn. Overall, 82 percent of respondents said they agree or somewhat agree the school provides a “positive climate” for students where good behavior, achievement and efforts are consistently rewarded. Sixty-nine percent, or 126 of the 182, said they believe students feel safe anywhere at the school – in classrooms, bathrooms or outdoors.

However, only half of those responding said they believe all students are consistently treated fairly and equally. When asked what he believes the finding indicates, Murray spoke directly.

“It’s strained race relations … we still have some distance to go in this area,” he said.

Murray gave a hypothetical example in which he discusses disciplinary action with one set of Hispanic, Native American and white parents.

“The Hispanics would think that their child was not treated the same as the Natives and whites. The Native parents would think their child was being singled out unfairly and the white parents would say the same thing,” Murray explained. “Everyone thinks the other groups are getting a better or worse deal that they are … we have one of the most diverse schools in northwest Lower Michigan. I don’t know if we’ll ever get 100 percent on this. But we can work on it.”

With regard to whether there are high expectations for student performance, 79 percent indicated they agree students are provided opportunities to assume responsibility and demonstrate leadership in the classroom. Sixty-one percent indicated that attention to students is distributed equally between low and high achievers. Seventy-nine percent of those responding said they agree or somewhat agree that all students are made to feel they can achieve and are expected to achieve in the classroom.

In the third area examined – whether Murray has demonstrated leadership with regard to the district’s mission to ensure all students acquire the “knowledge, skills and desire” to achieve success – the community response was positive. Sixty-four percent indicated they believe the statement “what’s best of kids” is the most important criteria used in making decisions throughout the school. In addition, 82 percent said they agreed or somewhat agreed that state standards and testing criteria were being integrated into and aligned within the curriculum.

No adjustments in Murray’s $105,567 annual salary were made by the board pending the outcome of ongoing negotiations with the Suttons Bay Education Association, support and pre-school staff, he said.

In other business during the more than 2-hour monthly meeting, the board:

• Learned that business manager Leann Eustice had received certification from the Michigan School Business Officials.

• Approved the Advanced Placement art students trip to New Orleans scheduled for May 13-19.

• Had its first reading of proposed policy revisions dealing with everything from the “care, custody and display” of the American flag and alignment with the Family Medical Leave Act. Adoption of the policy revision could take place at the board’s April meeting.

• Agreed to amend the notice for its March 24 workshop meeting to include possible action on bids to purchase a bus.