001Hi, my name is Chris Adler. I'm the director of human resources for the Summer Prairie Area School District and I'm going to go through the proposed handbook changes for our June 9th, 2025 uh schoolboard meeting. Um much of the changes that we typically do each year um as uh described in the situation report we try to do on an annual basis. We review the handbooks uh both from an employee worker standpoint uh and also a departmental standpoint. um always looking for ways to either clarify things that seem to be confusing or making sure that we're updated to like um the current environment and that's uh specifically in technology. Um and then also making sure that if anything's changed legally or within law that that is reflected in our handbooks. So a lot of the uh
002pieces I'm going to be describing today are more around clarifying uh and updating based on uh technology. Um, and I'll go through those pretty quickly. Uh, one section I'll take a little bit more time with because it's larger. Um, and we'll go from there. So, uh, the first handbook that we're looking at is our professional hand educator handbook. Uh, specifically for our professional educators. Um, both of those, uh, one of the pieces is really around clarification around overloads. Um in the past, as you can see, we had um just said uh maybe assigned one instructional period or class uh per semester more than the typical teacher assignment outlined in our handbook. Um but we really wanted to define that instructional period because uh sometimes it varies and we want to make sure people understand what
003that period is. So uh we specifically put that language in the blue there. uh one instructional period or class equates to 45 minutes per day or 90 minutes every other day uh to kind of just uh connect with our block scheduling. The second piece uh is more about um when uh somebody has excess of 215 days of uh PTO uh in their PTO bank uh then we do provide professional educators uh with um a payment uh at the end of each um fiscal year. Before we had it in the first regularly scheduled payroll of July, but sometimes that was really hard for business services to turn that around, especially with holiday and sometimes depending on uh when the pay period in July actually fell. Um now that we go, you know, once every uh two
004weeks. So um that now has been moved to the second regularly scheduled payment in July. On to support staff. Um, we do have language in our professional educator handbook that uh if a substitute staff were to be assigned an error and they uh attend a school which rarely happens. Um then we do provide them with payment because they drove in, spent time and then had to possibly drive home. So we just mirrored that language and support staff because that is a group that typically has substitutes um uh come in for them if they are out of work. And then hours of work. Uh we do have a couple roles that literally are scheduled on weekends and holidays. Um specifically around custodial staff. Um so we wanted to make sure that uh the concept of being
005paid time and a half on a holiday or weekend. Uh we wanted to make it sure it was clear that if your job ro requires you to work on the weekend or holidays that the handbook language doesn't apply. And then on to our um all employee handbook which obviously as it states is meant for all employees. One of the areas we worked with this year uh specifically was around um updating a few pieces that are really focused on technology and electronic communication. So I'm not going to go bit by bit about what was changed. I'm I'm going to talk about the summary of those updates. uh most of the changes were really in line with what we're seeing with artificial intelligence. We worked with legal counsel to make sure that the language was matching um
006their uh opinion on how best uh to talk about artificial intelligence. So you'll see that uh we did add uh concepts around artificial intelligence platforms to make sure that um that is consistent with the current increase in the use of artificial intelligence and technology uh both from a communication standpoint specifically but we're also seeing that in work that people do which we'll talk about in a little bit. Uh we also updated just some policy references to make them more specific around uh not just policies but the procedures themselves. uh we added uh new um like more clear uh user responsibility about making sure data is protected. Um and then obviously we updated social media platforms because that's changing all the time and we do want people to understand um you know what we're talking about
007with social media. So this is something that typically probably would change um over the years because we know that social media changes pretty quickly. So, as you can see, we've added in X, uh, which was formerly Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, just so people understand what we're talking about. Okay, just go to the next page. Um the other part that we're talking about specifically around uh again technology and preventing uh inappropriately relation students around student relations is that we clarified age language because prior to that we had um you know uh we were talking about uh whether regardless of whether or not the student is 18 years old, we just made that clearer because we do have students that are over 18 years old. So, we talked about adding language around or older after 18 years old
008to emphasize the prohibition that applies to all students regardless of their age. Um, we updated uh some just generic policy language and actually added in the actual pol policy of GBD and GBDR uh from the process standpoint. And then we added uh section C uh which was to really make clear uh the mandatory reporting requirements if anybody suspects uh child abuse and that it does connect to technology as well. Um and you can see that uh within that you know we are talking more and more about um the importance of reporting and then the work made for hire. Um this language we added uh more language around artificial intelligence again that um even if it is generated by artificial intelligence if it's under the direction of an employee that would be included in work made
009for hire um in in the case where where people are um using the the materials that are created on um while they're working for us uh to you know generate income for themselves outside of employment. Um so again that that that work is actually owned by the district. Um and again we just made it clearer uh around district ownership rights uh by adding the language that the district shall at all times retain all rights and privileges pertaining to any and all work made for hire. When we look at annual vacation uh in all employee handbook, we just made it um a little bit clearer around the idea that yes, employees are entitled to use vacation, but that's really under the um supervisor's um kind of realm of approval. Um, but we needed language where if
010an employee in their if they're a full- year employee, uh, if they resign in their first 90 work days, any vacation that has been put into their account does not get paid back to them. Um, because vacation in our language throughout our handbooks is is paid out if somebody were to resign. Um and this just kind of gives us our concept of probationary period that if somebody resigns in their probationary period of 90 work days, uh they would for forfeit that vacation payout. And then finally um uh there's required employment training that we have that are is both district required and state required for mandatory reporting bloodborne pathogens. And we want to make sure that it's clear that any of that type of training, required employment training, is just a condition of employment, but it
011doesn't count towards uh any of our groups compensation structures around PD hours or points. Um and uh so we just wanted to make that clear uh in our handbooks as that language was not there before. So again, as I stated in the situation report, um most of this language uh typically is worked through our employee engagement workg groups uh just to make sure they're aware of it. Um but you know, this year is a little different because it really just was around clarity. Um and then uh obviously updating to social media platforms and just the legal requirements that we need uh to be clear on um especially in the technology realm. So, um, you know, last year was a better example when we moved our, um, PTO, you know, payouts with somebody that resigns after,
012um, resigns from our our our district. We moved that to a, um, a stay stipend, we call it. So, last year was a better example of really diving in with our employee work groups and, uh, coming up with a solution uh, to something that people were interested in changing. Um, so, um, thank you and, um, I appreciate you listening. [Music]