Problem

The problem of this study was to ascertain the answer to the following question: What are the criteria and procedures used in the formal evaluation of secondary public school principals' performance in Virginia, and how important are these to the process? Further inquiries were made to determine the purposes of evaluating secondary public school principals.

Procedures

A four-point scale was employed in the questionnaire to assess the opinions of division superintendents regarding the importance of the evaluation criteria and procedures employed to evaluate the performance of secondary public school principals. The Likert four-point scale was used to allow respondents to indicate for each statement relative to the evaluation criteria and procedures a choice of one of four degrees of responses: very important, important, slightly important, or not important.

Descriptive statistics (frequencies and percentages) were employed to analyze data relative to the problem, and the one-way analysis of variance was employed to determine if differences existed between demographic variables and responses of groups of division superintendents to the degrees of importance of the evaluation criteria and procedures. The Scheffe test was employed to determine which groups differed significantly at the .05 alpha level.

Population

Data were sought for the major survey from the population of division superintendents in 132 school divisions in Virginia. One hundred and five division superintendents completed and returned the major survey questionnaire. Division superintendents were chosen as the population to supply data for this study because they were the ones who legally were responsible for the evaluation of principals.

Conclusions

1. The “Standards of Quality" evaluation criteria that pertained to the annual school plan, handbook of policies and procedures, coordinating services of persons working in the school, instructional supervision and assistance to teachers, and the cooperative evaluation program were very important to the formal evaluation process of secondary public school principals. Also, the "non-Standards of Quality" evaluation criteria that pertained to business and finance, school plant, and school community relations were. very important to the formal evaluation process of secondary public school principals.

2. The procedures that were employed to gather data to assess the principals' work performance were very important. Also, making personal visits to the school by the superintendent was a very important procedure to the formal evaluation process of secondary public school principals.

3. The most important purpose of the evaluation of secondary principals was to improve task performance and the least important purpose was to grant merit or performance pay.

Recommendation

The "Standards of Quality" and "non-Standards of Quality" evaluation criteria and procedures that division superintendents rated very important to the formal evaluation process of secondary public school principals should be continuously employed to evaluate the principals in Virginia. Specific findings, implications, ·and recommendations were offered.