Board-Savvy Superintendent
Policy Pitfalls Awaiting Triage
BY COURTNEY SANIK/School Administrator, January 2021

MY PHONE BUZZES. It’s a call from a school board president.

Board president: “I need help. Three years ago, we drafted a policy on homework, but it seems nothing has changed. Where did we go wrong? The superintendent didn’t make it happen.”

Me: “Send it over. I can take a look at what you’ve written.”

Board president: “Sure. We don’t want to rewrite 15 pages. It takes too long, and we can’t agree on anything!”

A Cumbersome Feel

This is an exchange I’ve had several times on various topics. I expect within the year I will again.

When it comes to drafting school board policies, district administrators and board members, with few exceptions, don’t enjoy the process. It’s understandable. There may be a lot of policies, and people have a hard time agreeing on language. It’s cumbersome and can feel like an exercise in futility.

Think you’re done? Soon it’s time for review. Alas, board policies need to be addressed. Many state laws and regulations require school districts to adopt particular policies, and everything must be kept up to date.

Accessible Aid

Open your district’s policy manual (physically or online) to a random page. If that policy hasn’t been reviewed in, say, five years, something is wrong.

Help is available. Your state school boards association probably has someone like me — a policy consultant to help boards and administrators handle the policy process.

For a first step, see how old the policies are. Then, make use of (or introduce) a system of tracking the status of each policy. The process needs to be monitored, and an administrator is a good candidate for handling this responsibility. An administrator or board clerk can provide both continuity to the process as board members change and a reality check by flagging areas where (1) practice doesn’t match policy, (2) additional resources are needed for policy implementation, and (3) the school district may not be in compliance.

Wrestling Advice

In my 13 years working with school boards, I’ve developed several tips on policy maintenance.

»No. 1: Put the policy manual on a three-year review cycle and place policy review on every agenda. If there are no changes, you can consider it reviewed.

Districts have different revision methods. Some boards have a policy committee while others work as a committee of the whole. Either way, administrators are an important part of the process from start to finish.

An administrator may lead the board or a committee through the review process, may have a policy chair who takes the lead or uses a hybrid method.

One skill all boards and administrators need is the ability to craft appropriate language. Policies need to be concise but also contain enough information to give guidance and direction (without straying into micromanagement).

»No. 2: Use accessible language and as few words as possible. Language should be targeted to your average reading level and be conversational. Avoid legalese and outdated words (“shall” ought to be supplanted by “will” or “must”). Skip the tongue twisting binary of “he or she” by using the gender-neutral pronoun “they.”

A useful website for policy drafters is www.plainlanguage.gov. It is managed by the Plain Language Action and Information Network, which supports the use of understandable policy language.

Well-meaning boards, administrators or committees can spend hours wordsmithing to find the right words to convey intent. Rather, get to something workable and come back to it.

»No. 3: Look for similar policies in other school districts. You can Google, but often your state school boards association has sample versions.

»No. 4: Next time a policy comes up for review, don’t dread it. Embrace the process as an opportunity to draft a document that is more user friendly and aligns with current practice of the district, as well as state and federal law.

COURTNEY SANIK is senior policy consultant with the New York State School Boards Association in Latham, N.Y.