The District 225 School Board has approved a plan to update the policy manual in order to better align with Illinois law, Superintendent Dr. R.J. Gravel said.
The plan to begin the update was approved at the Aug. 25 board meeting. The board will work with the Illinois Association of School Boards (IASB), a widely used nonprofit by school districts in Illinois aiming to help Illinois school boards, in order to ensure that all parts of their manual are up-to-date, Gravel said.
IASB will begin combing through the manual this fall to make sure that South aligns with current laws and legal holdings. If South has a policy that does not align with the law, IASB will advise South to update it, Gravel said.
The rough draft is projected to be finished by December or January so the manual can be finalized by April to update the student parent handbook. The handbook, which is used for all rules, procedures, and policies at South, needs to be done by May for the new school year’s registration, Gravel said. The district approved the cost of $11,320 for the input from IASB, with an extra
$3,625 fee to digitize the manual, district documents said.
“[IASB] will develop draft policies used [by the majority] of districts in Illinois, and [IASB] maintains and addresses all of the federal [and] state laws and court cases that exist,” Gravel said.
Once the new rules are adopted, the schools will begin a process of implementation, Ronald Bean, Assistant Principal, Dean of Students, said. The deans will hold meetings to discuss how the new rules will be put into applications at South, Bean said.
The goal is to make policy manual edits open to public feedback, so after receiving the administration’s proposed list of changes, the district will present them at public meetings to collect feedback from stakeholders, Gravel said.
“If people have thoughts on a policy, there will be opportunities for them to share their comments [at board meetings] before [the new manual] is adopted,” Gravel said. “I would [also] encourage every student to [share feedback].”
