New London — The Board of Education on Thursday night approved the format and criteria it will use to evaluate Superintendent Manuel J. Rivera for at least the next three years.

Under the criteria approved by the board, Rivera’s annual evaluations will have three components: a rating for “educational leadership, organizational management and relationships” established by the Connecticut Association of Board of Education, completion of annual goals detailed in the district’s strategic operating plan, and achievement of student growth and performance targets.

“The intent here is to move toward a more performance type of evaluation system where you are rating me based on what I’ve delivered on our approved strategic operating plan,” Rivera told the board. “And then another part of that performance piece is student achievement outcomes and how we have we been able to move the needle and have we met certain student achievement outcomes.”

The CABE rating will account for 40 percent of Rivera’s total evaluation score each year, while the strategic operating plan will count for 50 percent in the first year and decrease by 10 percent each subsequent year.

The student performance targets will count for 10 percent in the first year and will increase by 10 percent each following year.

The new evaluation procedures call for the Board of Education to identify in June which goals of the operating plan and which student performance targets will be the focus of Rivera’s next evaluation.

Rivera will be required to submit to the board at least two reports on the status of the goals set for him by the board.

At the board’s annual retreat, which is held in July or August, he will submit a final report with documentation showing whether he achieved the goals established by the board. The Board of Education then will confirm Rivera’s final score and submit his complete evaluation.

Rivera ultimately will be given a score between 1 and 4, based on the scoring rubric and category weights approved by the board. A rating of 3 or 4 in two consecutive years may serve as grounds for a contract extension, while a rating less than 3 for two years may constitute grounds for non-renewal of his contract.

“The whole idea is to have goals and measures that you’re holding me accountable for and that I, in turn, am holding principals for,” Rivera told the board. “They, in turn, as we work with our teachers as they’re setting goals, that it ripples its way right down through the entire system. And these are the kinds of things that make a difference.”

c.young@theday.com

Twitter: @ColinAYoung