LAKEVILLE — A survey will be sent out to members of the community asking for feedback on superintendent Alan Strauss’ performance, members of the Freetown Lakevillle School Committee decided in a meeting on Monday, July 1. 

The survey responses will be reviewed by the school committee and taken into consideration during the school district head’s two-year evaluation, which members said they hope will occur at the end of July. 

The decision to send out a survey comes after Freetown and Lakeville residents and town officials expressed anger over the lack of communication from the School Committee regarding how the superintendent was being evaluated. 

Committee members have set July 8 as a tentative date for the survey to be sent out via email to residents, district staff and town officials. That will give committee members enough time to review survey responses before a public evaluation of the superintendent is performed, members said. 

The decision to send out a survey comes after Freetown and Lakeville residents and town officials expressed anger over the lack of communication from the school committee regarding how the superintendent is being evaluated. 

At a recent school committee meeting, town officials said they only recently received a copy of the superintendent’s formative evaluation after asking for it for a year. 

And residents said they only just learned that the superintendent is being evaluated on a two-year plan. The formative assessment was performed after the superintendent’s first year on the job. 

Freetown resident Margaret French brought forth guidelines from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education stating that superintendents should be evaluated annually. 

She added that, according to those guidelines, the school committee can only choose to push the evaluation out to two years if the superintendent has sufficient experience. 

“Mr. Strauss does not have experience. When was that decision made?” asked French. 

School Committee Vice Chair Will Sienkewicz said the superintendent was put on a two year plan to “give him time to meet his goals,” adding the decision was made during executive session. 

Members of the audience said making that choice during executive session was a violation of open meeting law. 

Residents were also angered over the fact that the results of the formative assessment were not made public until a year after the assessment was completed. The formative evaluation was signed by the School Committee in June of 2023, members confirmed. 

“Every time this committee was asked for an update [on the evaluation], there were no updates,” said Lakeville resident Sherry Baron. 

Sienkewicz said the results were shared with School Committee members, but were never shared in open session. 

“Once again we have broken open meeting law. I don’t understand you folks,” said Baron. “Everything seems to be back door, fraud, collusion, whatever you want to call it. But it certainly is not giving the people who elected you what they deserve.”