As Superintendent David Krenz’s contract comes under renewal this year, the Austin Public School board made it easier to evaluate the job he does Thursday.

Board members approved a process to evaluate district superintendents, which will be used as Krenz’s evaluation begins soon. Before this year, board members chose different methods to evaluate superintendents as there wasn’t a clear policy laid out, according to Dick Lees, board vice-chairman.

“It’s just the processes that the school board changes,” Lees, who’s served on the board for 16 years, said. “They all come out all very similar. There’s not a great deal of difference.”

That changed this year, as Board Chairman Aaron Keenan proposed a clear way to rate Krenz’s performance as superintendent. The new process involves giving out a 360 review, which is a feedback survey given to employees that’s commonly used by human resource professionals, according to Mary Burroughs, the district’s human resource director.

The 360 review allows district employees who work closely with the superintendent to give their opinions on how well a superintendent does their job without revealing themselves.

The board chair and superintendent will choose who to send out 360 reviews to, in part so a superintendent can put their best foot forward. These 360 reviews are meant for feedback, as the board will go through a final review process after receiving the 360 review results.

“You want the information (given in a 360 review) to be coaching,” Burroughs said. “It should be used for learning.”

Krenz will go under review within weeks, as his current employee contract is up for renewal in July. Increases to Krenz’s yearly salary of $132,000 may have to wait as an education bill proposing a two-year salary freeze for public and charter school employees is currently up for debate in the state Senate.

District officials and the superintendent, along with union representatives of the district’s teachers, paraprofessionals, custodians, food service workers and secretaries will proceed with contract negotiations in the coming months as though the bill will not be passed, meaning they will work out contracts with possible pay increases by June 30.

While board members hope to finish Krenz’s current review by March, the superintendent will be annually reviewed starting in October and ending sometime in December or January, according to a proposed evaluation policy Keenan submitted.

“Having a standardized process in place helps … to evaluate a superintendent,” Keenan said. “Without having a defined, repeatable process documented, it makes it very hard to do that.”