School Board To Consider Policy Changes, Rescissions

members could make several changes—mostly minor—to board policies during their meeting this morning.

Nine board policies could be rescinded as officials aim to trim duplicate language from the rulebooks. The policies deal with paraprofessionals.

“Our board policy had divided paraprofessionals from other classified personnel, but paraprofessionals are classified employees,” said Clark Maggart, the district’s executive director of Human Resources. “Back in 2001, for whatever reason, they created a duplicate policy, and they had a policy for classified employees and a policy for paraprofessionals, but the policies were identical. The Georgia School Boards Association has always recommended that whenever possible, that you try cut down duplicity in policies, so we’re rescinding those paraprofessional policies because all of those individuals are covered under the classified policies.

“[Paraprofessionals] still going to get federal family medical leave, they’re still going to have sick leave, they’re still going to have maternity leave, they’re still going to have working conditions.”

Board members will consider changes to some policies, including revisions to a policy that covers the adoption of policies. If the board votes approve the amended Policy BDC, it would align the policy’s language with the board’s common practice to approve general revisions in one meeting versus two, Maggart said.

“The way our policy currently reads, you could make no policy revisions—even those of a nominal nature, just changing a word—and they would have to sit for four weeks before you would be able to make that revision, and that was never the intent of the board for a policy to sit for four weeks unless there was a substantial change,” he said. “Now if there was a substantial change or if it was a brand new policy, then the board could approve to let that policy sit for four weeks for review, but for general revisions where you’re changing a word here or a phrase there … there’s no need to have that policy sit for four weeks.”

The revised Policy BDC sat on the table for its required four weeks and now comes before the board for its possible adoption.

Another proposed revision deals with Policy BCBK, which deals with executive sessions, more commonly known as closed sessions. The changes would align the board’s rules with recent changes in the state’s open meetings laws.

Three other policies are slated to be revised due to a change in a job title. The district no longer has an assistant superintendent of student services, but rather, an executive director of student services, so language would have to be changed to reflect that. One of the three policies, which deals with classified personnel leave, also could be amended to include language regarding miscellaneous leave.

The Paulding County School Board will meet at 8:30 a.m. in the central office boardroom. The meeting agenda is attached to this article.

Also meeting today is the , which will hold its work session at 10 a.m. and business session at 7 p.m.; both meetings will be held in the commissioners’ boardroom at the Watson Government Complex. The work session agenda is attached to this article.

Return to Dallas-Hiram Patch for coverage of these meetings.