The Examiner U-46 News Feed

New board policy manual approved by District U-46

By Seth Hancock
  The Board of Education in School District U-46 approved of a new board policy manual at its meeting on Monday, July 18.
  The vote was 6-0, board member Melissa Owens was absent.
  The new policy manual will align with the taxpayer-funded organization Illinois Association of School Board’s (IASB) model policies.
  There was no discussion or overview presented on what changes were made to board policies with this shift to the IASB’s PRESS Plus which allows the lobbyist group access to update U-46 policies.
  The new policy manual, which is 395 pages, was not posted for public inspection on the board’s documents page prior to the vote. The policy manual that is now posted states it was ready, pending adoption, on May 24.
  Board members attempted to reassure that the board will still discuss policies and that the policy manual needed to be approved in order to be ready for upcoming updates from the IASB.
  “I just want to remind the public that we will be going back and looking at the different sections and making sure items that were brought up at our previous committee meetings have been addressed,” said board member Dawn Martin. “But we’re voting to have a policy in place so that we have a policy in place as the updates come in.”
  “This is a living document,” said Sue Kerr, the board’s president. “It is always being updated either by us or by Springfield.
  Kerr suggested that the board will likely create a policy subcommittee in the future.
  The policy manual has eight sections including school district organization (three policies), board of education (31 policies), general school administration (10 policies), operational services (29 policies), personnel (40 policies), instruction (43 policies), students (43 policies) and community relations (12 policies).