King’s Evaluation Improves; Gets New Four-Year Deal With Putnam Schools

Putnam County Director of Schools Corby King saw his annual performance evaluation score increase, especially among school administrators.

School Board Attorney Dan Rader released the results Thursday night at the School Board meeting. King’s total score finished at 4.22 out of five. That’s up from 4.14 last year.

King saw his score among the school system’s administrators increase from 4.11 in 2021 to 4.48 in 2022. Administrators, who have ranked the director for the last several years, looked at 34 categories.

“I think any way you analyze this, the way that it’s done by each individual person confidentially and by these administrators confidentially, you can see that it’s a good evaluation to get a really good picture of the performance,” Rader said. “Over four out of five in each category is exemplary work. And I think any way you characterize it, it would be an excellent evaluation.”

The school board, including its two new members, ranked King on 130 categories. On that evaluation, King rated almost identical to last year’s score.

“We’ve got really a great team in all of our schools, the administrators, the teachers, my team here at the office,” King said. “Everybody cares about the students. They care about our system. And it’s an honor to lead, to continue to lead and have the opportunity to lead the group here and really just work alongside them. I appreciate the opportunity to continue to serve from this capacity.”

The board also agreed to enter into a new four-year contract with King. Under state law, King cannot receive an extension of his contract, so the board has done a new agreement annually based on the evaluation. The new agreement will keep King as the director through June, 2025. It will increase King’s annual salary to $135,000, a $5,000 increase.

“That salary is still well-below what the average is for a school system our size,” School Board Chair Kim Cravens said. “We’re doing this because we think he deserves something.”

School Board Member Lynn McHenry said work still needs to be done on King’s salary considering Putnam County is the 13th largest school district in the state.

“We want to reflect, obviously, the achievement we need to in being a large school system, which Mr. King is doing well, but we also need to reflect it in the monies that we pay not only our director, but the assistants and definitely the teachers and staff,” McHenry said. “So we’re continuing to try to move in that direction, and this is just another one of those steps.”