Overall, the Northport Board of Education is satisfied with Superintendent Tyrus Wessell's job performance over the last year.

At its meeting Monday night, the board reviewed and approved a final written evaluation form for Wessell on a 6-1 vote, with member Alan Woods opposed. Board president Denise Branch said the board and staff at Northport Public School, as well as members of the public, underwent an exhaustive process in conducting Wessell’s annual evaluation.

The board came up with an evaluation form to rate Wessell on different aspects of his job. The response choices for each item were “strongly disagree, disagree, don’t know, agree, strongly agree.” Wessell was evaluated in several areas, including supervision of curriculum and instruction, facilities and operations management, public relations and communications, personnel management, supervision of board goals, board relations, supervision of business and fiscal matters, and job performance.

The board gave Wessell an overall rating of 83 percent approval, based on responses from board members, the staff and public. The board conducted its review of Wessell in a closed session at his request last month. Wessell said yesterday that he and board members had a good discussion about his job performance during the closed session and he was overall pleased with the final evaluation.

Areas where board members would like to see Wessell make improvements include better communication with the board and public on senior projects and parent-teacher conferences. The board also sounded the need for improvement in student test scores.

“Ty does a good job but should clarify focus of what we are trying to accomplished. Good to see positive ratings with teacher rapport,” were two written comments included in the board’s final comment section of the evaluation. Woods could not be reached for comment on the evaluation process prior to this edition going to print.

In other business, the board:

• Unanimously approved a resolution to have the Grand Traverse Academy join the Cherryland Conference for the 2008-09 school year. Northport and St. Mary, along with Traverse City Christian and the Leelanau School, make up the Cherryland, but not all schools field teams in all varsity sports. The Grand Traverse Academy is a charter school in Grand Traverse County with a total enrollment of 800 students. Wessell said yesterday that G-T Academy would field conference teams in girls’ volleyball and boys’ and girls’ basketball. The school is also putting together a soccer program for the fall.

• Unanimously approved the sixth grade class trip to the Detroit Institute of Art on May 8-9.

• Approved 6-1, with Woods opposed, the purchase of social study text books.

• Approved 6-0, with Woods abstaining, going into closed session with school attorney Jeff Bartlett to discuss strategy for the ongoing special education administrative law hearing involving the school district and the Woods family. Branch said the board was in closed session for one hour and took no action on any matters related to the issues discussed in the closed session. Woods did not attend. The hearing resumed this week in Traverse City with no resolution expected this week.

• Reviewed a report from the School Improvement Team’s science sub-committee. The committee has made recommendations for changes to the district’s science classes. Branch said those recommendations will be reviewed by the School Improvement Team, with a final recommendation expected to come to the board in May or June.