The H.T. Edwards Sr. Teaching and Learning Center, where the Clarke County School District administrative offices are locate is displayed. The CCSD Board of Education Policy Committee is wrapping up a comprehensive review of the BOE’s policies. “It’s been interesting, we have to try to be really efficient,” Board member representing District 4 and Policy Committee Chair Dr. Patricia Yager said. “I know some folks have watched policy meetings, and they’re like ‘wow, you’re just like, wham bam.’ I think it’s all the work in the background that makes it possible for us to move it quickly to the meetings.” Photo by Krista Shumaker
The Clarke County School District Board of Education’s Policy Committee is finishing a full revision of the BOE’s policies, which are rules governing the school district.
“Our policy chair, Policy Committee and then eventually our board and district staff, spent a significant amount of time reviewing policies, updating policies and modifying policies,” CCSD BOE President Dr. LaKeisha Gantt, who represents District 7 and sits on the Policy Committee, said.
This review follows an April 2020 report from Cognia, CCSD’s accreditation agency.
“(Cognia) pointed out that a lot of our policies are out of date, and I thought ‘huh, that’s odd,’ then I did a little research. At the time, (Associate Superintendent for Policy & School Support Services) Dawn Myers was the district chief that was helping me with it, and we prepared an Excel folder that had all the policies and their most recent dates of review or revision,” Board Member representing District 4 and Policy Committee Chair Dr. Patricia Yager said.
“I was really shocked to see that out of about 300 policies and regulations, more than 200 of them were more than five years old and many of them were more than 10 years old, and some of them were from the 80s and hadn’t really been touched.”
— Dr. Patricia Yager,
CCSD BOE Policy Committee Chair
According to Yager, many of the Board’s policies have remained relatively unchanged for years.
“I was really shocked to see that out of about 300 policies and regulations, more than 200 of them were more than five years old and many of them were more than 10 years old, and some of them were from the 80s and hadn’t really been touched,” Yager said.
Yager hopes to finish the review by April so that the Board can restructure its committees.
“We’re doing (Instructional Program or) I policies (in February), and we have (Student or) J policies next month, and then we’ll be done. My goal is to be working on the policy for the committees at the same time we’re working on the J policy so that once we’ve got all the J policies pushed through, then we adopt the new committees so that makes sure we’re not that far away,” Yager said. “Certainly by the April meeting we’ll be able to vote on the new committees.”
