School board renews Newton superintendent’s contract

Tom Messinger has not had his end-of-year evaluation yet, but members of the school board on Monday unanimously agreed to renew the Newton superintendent’s contract for another three years. Messinger first joined the school district in 2020 after previously serving as superintendent at Red Oak.

Before the Newton Community School District Board of Education made a motion to continue Messinger’s contract, board president Cody Muhs addressed whether it was the right time to approve the contract when the superintendent hasn’t had his formal evaluation. Muhs said the evaluation will be held next meeting.

“I didn’t think that was going to be a prerequisite for getting this done, and based on the two informal reviews that we’ve had so far I didn’t think it was necessarily going to have to follow the eval process,” Muhs said. “… Really, we would have liked to have done the eval by now. I just didn’t get our stuff in order.”

School board member Travis Padget agreed with Muhs regarding the timing of the continuation. School board member Donna Cook said the evaluation process could be moved up in the future to coincide with the vote to continue his contract. Muhs agreed and wouldn’t want to do it in this order in the long-term.

Cook asked if the contract was standard or if there were deviations to the original contract other than making it a rolling three-year document. NCSD Director of Business Services Tim Bloom said the only the thing removed from the contact was the salary portion. Muhs said that will be discussed “in the near future.”

Muhs said, “We’ll do this more along the lines with the eval.”

Cook said she “certainly supports” continuing Messinger’s contract and is “very pleased” with his performance.

The school board voted 7-0 to continue the contract. The next regular school board meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m. June 28 at the E.J.H. Beard Administration Center. The meeting will also be broadcasted through Zoom.

Contact Christopher Braunschweig at 641-792-3121 ext. 6560 or cbraunschweig@newtondailynews.com