Jim Gunn to oversee Tri-County school board improvements
Auditor General Michael Pickup released scathing report about students' performance
The provincial government has hired Jim Gunn to oversee improvements at the Tri-County Regional School Board after it was singled out by the auditor general this week.
Students in the district routinely score lower on standardized tests than the provincial average.
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Auditor General Michael Pickup found that even though the board says numeracy and literacy are priorities, it has never done an in-depth analysis of why students are performing poorly.
Education Minister Karen Casey says Gunn will work with the board for the next six months to turn things around.
Gunn is seasoned educator. He spent 14 years as a superintendent in the Annapolis Valley region and worked as interim superintendent at the South Shore Regional School Board in 2006 and 2013 and at the Tri-County Regional School Board in 2011.
"Given the urgency of this situation, I want students, teachers, parents and the board to know that work begins immediately to correct the shortfalls identified by the auditor general," Casey said in a statement.
Pickup also found board members had no mechanism to evaluate their own performance and inadequate procedures to judge the performance of its superintendent.
He criticized school board management and said outside of literacy, they are not keeping track of student performance in a slew of subjects.
The school board has accepted the auditor general's recommendations.