A teacher contacted GothamSchools last week to report that her principal had surprised teachers up for tenure at her school with a request for a portfolio.

“The superintendent just informed my principal that each person up for tenure had to have an extensive portfolio demonstrating all the work they do that benefits the school,” said the teacher, who herself is up for tenure this year.

“There’s been stress, to say the least,” she said.

The portfolios are one of several ways district superintendents are soliciting evidence to back up their tenure decisions. The superintendents have always had the final say on tenure decisions, but they rarely challenged principals’ recommendations in the past. Now they’re under pressure to toughen the tenure process and deny tenure or extend probation more often. So they’re asking principals to justify all of the recommendations they make. Superintendents can ask for whatever documentation they like, including portfolios. Some superintendents are also observing classes themselves or sitting down with principals to analyze teachers’ performance.

“Superintendents have been told that nothing is a given,” said a high school principal. He said he has been instructed to justify all of his tenure decisions with portfolios for each teacher. “Supes are definitely grabbing back some power in this area,” he said.

The teacher who is up for tenure reported that her principal handed down the portfolio edict around the beginning of the month — but gave few additional instructions.

“She provided no specific timing for when she might show up to browse them,” the teacher wrote. “I would say there’s very little communication about what’s expected to be in them. It’s a new requirement this year, and we were told about it last week.”

Some principals are trying to maintain some control over the tenure process. Concerned that his superintendent would push back against his tenure recommendations, IS 318 Principal Fortunato Rubino is videotaping classes taught by teachers up for tenure this year, for example.

Distributed by the association representing school superintendents and the New York State School Boards Association, the survey went out to about 700 superintendents and roughly half returned it. Those who did reported a grim year ahead in which the state would have to lay off four percent of its teachers, increase class sizes, and reduce electives.

The bulk of those lost teaching positions would come from New York City’s schools, which Mayor Bloomberg has said could lose about 8,500 teachers if the state budget cuts go through unchanged. Though 16 Democratic state senators have written to Governor David Paterson saying they won’t approve any cuts to education, the Senate is now prepared to pass Paterson’s budget as is.

School employees who don’t have teaching positions are at an even greater risk of losing their jobs, the survey shows. While the state budget cuts would force the average district to lay off about four percent of teachers, that number for non-teaching positions is closer to six percent.

A majority of the superintendents who responded said that in order to keep their schools running, they planned to spent some or all of their rainy day funds.

A revised law has been on the books for nearly a month, but the new system is still a mystery. Though the law calls for a new parent center, greater oversight of the Department of Education’s contracts, and an independent auditor of the department’s education data, all of these alterations are in their infancy, and none have been put in place.

Won as part of a deal between a group of runaway senators and Mayor Bloomberg, the parent center is perhaps the most concrete change with the least clear future. It will be housed at CUNY and will cost the city and state $1.6 million, but education officials have yet to define its role or how it will differ from the DOE’s current parent outreach, the Office for Family Engagement and Advocacy. Asked how far along the center’s development is, a DOE spokesperson had no comment.

The comptroller’s office, which has been given enhanced oversight of DOE contracts under the new law, is in a similar purgatory. Just as the position has gained new power, it has been caught in an election season that will endure until November, leaving neither the current office holder, mayoral hopeful Bill Thompson, nor his potential replacements, with the time take advantage of the law.

At the Independent Budget Office — the group chosen to double-check the DOE’s math — things are moving at a faster clip.

Doug Turetsky, a spokesman for the IBO, said the organization is in the process of interviewing candidates for education-related positions, but did not have a set idea of what the education data analysis arm of the IBO would look like.

“We’re feeling our way a bit here as we figure out who’s out there. In tandem, we’re figuring out how to get this in place,” Turetsky said. “We’re talking to a variety of people from academics to advocates and everyone in between to get greater insight into where people’s concerns lie and what they’re interested in.”

One of the more immediate changes is taking place in the role of superintendent. Under the new law, superintendents will have greater supervision of principals and more oversight of schools’ budgets. District family advocates will also now report to superintendents rather than the Office of Family Engagement and Advocacy, reverting to the way the system worked before the office’s creation in 2007.

The Department of Education has named three new interim acting superintendents to fill vacancies, according to the city’s chief schools officer, Eric Nadelstern. Why “interim acting”?

“Right now everything’s up in the air,” Nadelstern said. “Until the governance matters are resolved,” he said, the DOE is erring on the side of caution.

There are legal ambiguities surrounding the chancellor’s ability to appoint superintendents. With the reversion to pre-2002 education law, the chancellor can select superintendents, but they can only make contracts with community school boards. Klein has not revived these boards, leading some to question whether existing and incoming superintendents have the legal authority do their jobs.

The new hires will replace the outgoing superintendents in districts 8, 15, and 21.

The superintendent job opened up in District 8 in the Bronx last week when the city’s new chief achievement officer for special education and English language learners chose Dov Rokeach, who then held the position of superintendent, as her deputy.

Rosemary Stuart, who led District 15 in Brooklyn, is leaving in order to join the Community Learning Support Organization, one of the networks that support principals.

And in District 21, Ann Marie Lettieri-Baker, the former principal of Brooklyn’s PS 32 who has been working in the department’s accountability office, will replace Richard D’Auria.

Superintendents used to spend their days inside the schools in their districts, coaching and evaluating principals. They’re still legally required to rate principals. But under the Department of Education’s latest reorganization, they have much less time to do these evaluations. That’s because they’re also required to train and support people at schools in other districts. The job has changed so much that superintendents don’t actually have to visit the schools whose principals they evaluate.

Some principals have said they appreciate being free from micromanaging superintendents. But others are now saying that school leaders benefited from the day-to-day scrutiny that the superintendents offered.

“Most people do a little better when we know that we are accountable, not just in two years, but in the day to day,” Jeffrey Scherr, who recently retired from Queens’ Francis Lewis High School, said at an event last week at Columbia University’s Teachers College for members of a TC-based principal fellowship program. (I wasn’t at the event, but Insideschools‘ Crissy Strining was and sent me her notes. TC also posted a summary.)

“A level of expertise was taken away” when superintendents lost their supervisory role, a principal of a Brooklyn secondary school said at the event.

Superintendents’ expertise is still available, according to DOE spokesman Andrew Jacob. “The superintendent is always available to talk,” he told me. “Principals can also invite their superintendents into their schools as often as they want.”

And at the TC event, other principals countered that School Support Organizations, which principals contract to provide teacher training, provide the same assistance that the superintendents once did, with the added bonus that they are beholden to the schools that hired them, not a set of rigid rules set at central headquarters.

“When [superintendents] stopped talking to me about bulletin boards, my scores went up 50 percent,” one principal said. (This principal told TC that he didn’t want his name in the press.) “The data speaks for itself.”

But Scherr questioned what he called a “data will tell all” attitude, arguing that principals need to be held accountable for more than just test scores.

Some superintendents were guilty of “snoopervision,” or looking to catch principals making mistakes, Scherr said. But when superintendents’ supervision was good, they helped principals head off problems quickly, he said.

“My concern is that the lack of supervision leads to the possibility of failure before the test scores come in,” Scherr said.