001Good evening everyone and welcome to the policy legal contracts meeting uh this nove this December the 1st. Um we'll get started here. Uh is there any questions or comments or corrections on the last meeting minutes? No corrections. No comments. Okay. Any public participation? I don't see anybody for public participation. All right. I'll turn it back turn it over to our uh our uh chair or chair or um our uh legal person to to take care of this. Thank you, Vice President Alexander. Um tonight, uh we have some policies to review that were part of an October update from Niola. Uh the policy updates from Nola came out in the latter half of October. We did not have a committee meeting in November. So we are going to bring this batch forward uh for your consideration
002first reading tonight. Uh they are transportation related policies. Uh and so you'll see a lot of them are revisions or updates. These are Department of Transportation updates, federal code of federal regulation updates uh as required um by the Department of Transportation and also related House Bill 96 language still being updated uh for the board's consideration and uh Deborah Folk will be presenting uh on these policies tonight. Great. Thank you. Good evening, Chairman Alexander, Miss Autry, Pastor Harrison, Superintendent, and Legal Counsel. As legal counsel has advised, these are updates that came out of House Bill 96. There is also another related bill to this as well, House Bill 54. And these are policies that either have been in place and need updated, and we do have one new policy tonight. So our first one we are
003going to do is 4162 drug and alcohol testing of CDL license holders who perform safety sensitive functions and are subject to DOT. These are your bus drivers, mechanics as well as grounds crew, anybody holding a CDL within part of their particular job performance. So, as you can see, highlighted in green are the updates. Anything that is sort of a pinkish red color and struck out are the changes that Niola provided to us that need to be deleted. These have been carefully reviewed and the first one is a definition of alcohol means the intoxicating agent in beverage alcohol, ethyl alcohol or other low molecular weight alcoholics including methyl and isopropyl alcohol. On section F, we now have a addition um that it now reads the term CDL license holder means all regular and substitute bus drivers,
004other CDL license staff members who may drive students in boardowned vehicles or inspect, repair or maintain your B boardown vehicles. Those are obviously your bus drivers, your substitute bus drivers, your mechanics, and as I said, your grounds department, warehousemen, other people that for the vehicle they drive are required to have a CDL. In G, they decided to put the actual term CDL license holder and struck out his or her. The next section is an update regarding exactly what occurs as far as controlled substances and these are staff members who holds a CDL license and may operate a commercial motor vehicle. Those are your school buses, your dump trucks, other large vehicles that are considered under this classification. and they went ahead and then is tested for the presence of alcohol in the bus drivers or
005CDL license holders system. And we currently do have that in place for this group. And then it also added a new paragraph. A list of all active CDL holders are expected to be qualified to operate the commercial motor vehicle will be provided to the contracted certified testing center for purposes of managing the federallymandated random testing and this list shall not include nonCDL holders. The federalmandated random testing program is under the federal statute and we are currently in compliance with this particular statute. Now the next set is items that we needed to select. The legal council transportation and HR has gone through this section and it has been determined that option two is the one that the district would have enforce. The drug test are to be conducted in accordance with the federal and state regulations.
006A prior to employment, B for reasonable suspicion. C upon return to duty after any alcohol or drug rehabilitation which is part of the federal statute. D post accident. E on random basis. And F on a follow-up basis. And those are already what we are in compliance with. As you scroll down into the next section, these are just grammatical changes that they made in these areas. And so we now have an and or under section A that has been checked. The next sentence under B, they have gone ahead and struck out his or her safety sensitive function. And then the last set is the change at the last part of the paragraph. Nothing herein shall prevent the board from disciplining a staff member for misconduct associated with the staff members, not his or her anymore. It
007is the staff members uh alcohol or drug use regardless of whether the employee has disclosed having an alcohol or drug addiction. Yes sir. Question. What what if a person uh comes and they have a problem and they come to the staff and say, "I have a problem. You I need some help." What what what would occur? Um at this point, we would review those issues. We currently have through our HR department an assistance program. If they were tested to be positive, they would then have to be taken off the uh the job while they go through the mandatory rehabilitation program. Okay. So, there is a program they can go to. There is a program. And they cannot drive until they do the rehabilitation program that is certified by the federal department of transportation. Okay. Thank
008you. You're welcome. I have a question. Yes, brother Harrison. Uh thank you, brother Chair. Uh, I have a couple questions as far as the policy. Now, I I I see the the green is what we're updating. The strikethroughs is what is um not um let's say option one was a strikethrough. So, we're choosing option two. Yes, sir. Um, so have we reviewed the policy for the sake of reviewing the policy or are we just updating based on federal guidelines? We have done both. We have reviewed regarding the federal guidelines that we are to comply with for CDL holders and we have inter we have actually reviewed each sentence and each item according to our previous policy as as well. Okay. And and and so I I guess I would direct this to the superintendent on
009these reviews. Um we we seem to be having a a disconnect with policy reviews. Um, we had a process of reviewing policies in in their entirety as far as the staff, the board. Um, and I would ask that we would continue to review together. Uh, so we won't come to a first, second, and third reading and we get stopped. We have some dead policies on the ag policy. We have some policies on the agenda that we have not gotten to because we have not sat and went through the policies. So when we come to these policies and I can understand the mandatory updates, but at a certain point we need to be reviewing policies to make sure that they fit the district in today's world and not just the Neola updates or the federal updates.
010And so I I would just ask that and uh and I don't have an issue with this policy because I don't know enough to ask anything on this policy, but it's difficult to really ask pertinent questions when we come to a meeting and we're told that it's been vetted already. Um and I I would ask that we would do that together through email. We I mean we don't have to wait for a committee. We can kind of Yeah. That was it. I There's not enough time. So, we'll catch it on the second. I'm glad you mentioned that, too. Uh doing this sometimes brings up another point real quick. Um that we have to be careful when we're going through the policies uh because there we have you have what you have the quorum and uh
011you got to be careful with that open policy and we'll probably I'm sure it'll be discussed later on sometime, but we have three people who are on the committee and we can't have all the board. So when you do that, we probably need to have the committee uh members do that along with maybe the staff because if you don't, we'll have some problems, issues. So that'll be I think that's something we Yeah, that's fine. I mean, we could do this. We don't have to meet as a committee all the time. We can do this through emails. Hey, we're going to do this policy, this policy, this policy, and it gives us a month to really look at this and um kind of say, okay, well, these are our options, right? And so everything, you know,
012doesn't have to be done through the committee um or on the committee day. Correct. I agree with that. Okay. Hi. Thank you. So, I'm sorry. Um under the staff member will be subject to disciplinary action up to and including termination for any of the following reasons. The update is to this one is under section A. reports to duty or performs work while having an alcohol concentration of any detectable amount or perform safety sensitive functions within 4 hours of after using alcohol. Pastor Harris, so here's the the law enforcement here coming out. So when we say any detectable amount, do we have a policy? Do we have a procedure? Do we have some kind of way of determining that there is a detectical amount or are we talking we smell alcohol? Um have do we do
013we how have we been handling this? Um, first of all, CDL drivers must do a T8, which is a actual physical, and during that physical, in order to get their yearly certification to drive, they are drug tested at that time. They also do drug testing for what we call suspicion. If, to your point, if we would have one or more supervising adults suspect for a variety of reasons, we have the ability to drug test them. And then we always do postacc drug testing uh when a accident happens with a school bus or a vehicle in which students are being transported. So we already have those in place. And then the other part of this particular policy is that these are also random pulls for CDL drivers. Currently our transportation department gets that information. You are
014in uh informed that you are on the list. We have a actual uh vendor that comes on site. They do those random drug testing and they report those back to HR um with obviously tests that are fine and tests that show an issue. And I guess I would ask if Mr. C, I don't want to use a name, Mr. C shows up and someone thinks he's been drinking or she's been drinking. Um, do the first thing you do is get a second adult to obviously observe the same things and you immediately call HR and that that person in our case will not be put on the road while we are doing the reasonable suspicion investigation. And that is part of their collective bargaining agreement. Is that good, Pastor Harrison? Are you talking about maybe having
015a a policy? Yeah. Okay. I'll ask. Okay. I think I what you're saying. Do we have a current policy that talks about for any staff who has to get drug tested? This is the one that covers transportation. The other one would be possibly in the HR venue. And I don't want to speak incorrectly to that policy. Well, we can find out because I I thought we've always Akan public schools has always had a policy from far as I've known that for any employee who is suspected of using some type of drugs that they go through that polic. We do have a drug-free um policy in general that covers a number of items. Okay. But these are transportation related and CDLs then go under the federal statute for DOT. Okay. Thank you. I think that's what
016you're Okay. I'm sorry. Go ahead. That's okay. That's what you're saying. Um then we want to go down to section E and it fails to remain readily available for postac accident testing which we just discussed. Um and the changes here are just the words notifying the staff members not his or her supervisor or the staff member's location. It was just a grammatical update from Niola in order to make it uh correct to the statute. In the next paragraph, you will see his or her changed to the staff member. Again, at the bottom of the page, a tested individual upon written request will be promptly provided copies of any records related to the tested individuals use of drugs or alcohol, including any records pertaining to the tested individual's drug or alcohol test. And then again, his
017or her is changed to the tested individual to refer to the person that's going through this process. And Deborah, I didn't want to interrupt for just one moment. I want to make sure I had the right number, but our current drug-free workplace policy numbers uh 3122.01 and 4122.01. 01. Sorry, Deb. Thank you. And then this uh under the next section, the superintendent shall submit for board approval a contract with a certified laboratory to provide the following services. We do have that in place and a clear clear and consistent communication with the district's medical review officer or an MRO may be provided through the contract with the certified testing facility and that is already in place. The update was may provide and those notifications go directly to HR. Now we're under the educational materials related to
018certain federal regulations, board policies and procedures. In this section, the update is the board designates the executive director of human resources or their design as the individual that will be responsible providing these educational materials. This is part of the actual hiring process. So that's why it is the executive director of human resources or their design. And then the same update was done the contact information for the executive director of human resources or their designate who is the individual designated by the board to answer questions about the educational materials. As I said, this is part of the hiring process. I'm sorry for just for a clarification. So everything here we're just talking about the bus drivers, the mechanics, the grounds, anybody driving a vehicle with CDL. Okay. And that is a good question. Just hang on
019one second. And it is now changed uh school board to be capitalized school board as opposed to uh small letters. School board property. Yes, sir. Saying school board property. Should it say school district property? Maybe. I guess I'm every time I see school board makes me think of school board members and so I think that's come up uh sometime earlier this year and maybe it should read school district district versus the board because when it sounds I read it sounds like it's to the board. So I just wanted to bring that up. I saw that uh earlier and I thought that would be a question I'd bring up. Thank you. Okay. And the next is return to duty safety sensitive positions. This is the actual update that comes from the federal clearing house that is
020already in place and this is the statute under which we now operate. Employees who are removed from performing safety sensitive functions as a result of this policy must complete the return to duty RDT process as required by the US Department of Transportation, Department of DOT regulations and their federal motor carrier safety act. Drug and alcohol clearing house status must be changed from prohibited to not prohibited before reser resuming safety sensitive duties. So to your question, Pastor Harrison, this is why they cannot drive until this process is completed. The RDT process requires an evaluation by a qualified substitute abuse professional or an SAP, successful compliance with the SAP's prescribed educational or treatment program, and the follow-up evaluation by the SAP determining that the employee has complied with the program. The employee must be com then complete
021a DOT return to duty test and obtain a verified negative test result and/or alcohol test result of less than 0.02 before being permitted to return to performance of safety sensitive functions. In addition, employees must comply with the SAP's written follow-up testing plan, which will be administered by by the district in accordance with DOT regulations. An employee who fails to comply with the follow-up testing plan will not be permitted to perform the safety sensitive duties. subject to any collective bargaining agreement or other legal requirements. Employees who are otherwise eligible to resume safety sensitive functions may not do so without the superintendent's approval. The federal clearing house came out two years ago. We immediately put this into place, but this is the first time that this has been updated by Neiola to meet these standards. Thank you.
022Any qu other questions reference to this year policy? I have one. Um, thank you, brother Chair. Um, and I think this would be for um, legal counsel. U, the title of this, the 4162 drug and alcohol testing for CDL license holders who perform safety sensitive functions and are subject to DT testing. Um, is is it is it feasible to say all district CDL license holders? It's possible. We can check and confirm on the statutory language. If there's a requirement, Niola usually puts that in the phrase. Okay. But I understand where your your question is. Okay. Okay. Any other questions? All right. Okay. So, we're now going on to the next one. Okay. So, all righty. Let's go here. So, now we are showing this is a brand new policy. This is 61 4162.01 drug and
023al alcohol testing of employees without CDL licenses who transport students in alternative vehicles. This is non DOT testing. I do want to give you a background as to why this has surfaced. recently out of House Bill uh 96, we now can use smaller vehicles to transport students and they have decided that they want those safety team members as an example, our coaches, our CCAs to also follow these same standards. So, this is a brand new policy statewide. So, this will involve nonCDL um people. they do not necessarily follow the federal statute, but this is the new policy in the state of Ohio. So again, this is basically the same language that you see in 4162, but it talks about alternative transports. So I want you to think of units that transport 12 people or less.
024These could be vans. They could be small buses. And where this one gets a little complicated, it depends on the weight of the actual vehicle, which although people say it's a 12 passenger vehicle, could require a CDL. It depends on the weight of the vehicle. So part of Akran public schools plan is to keep ours at nine passengers or less which is what we have done for our banned transports for years in the past. So again this is the same language all the way through. It gives you all the definitions and terms for the type and I want you to look at F. The term alternative vehicle includes all vehicles that are designated for nine passengers or less, that do not meet school bus construction standards. These vehicles do not meet federal definition for commercial
025motor vehicles, and do not require a CDL operator's license. So that's why you now have 60 4162 and 4162.01. This the language is exactly the same all the way through. In this case, the option was option one. The drug tests are to be conducted similar to federal DOT regulations prior to employment for reasonable suspicion upon return to duty after any alcohol or drug rehabilitation post accident and on a random basis and on follow-up basis. So as an example, if I was a coach and I was certified to transport students, this is exactly what I would be using to follow for myself. Yes. Does the um this have to be vans? Could this because you mentioned coach and I know sometimes coaches may not have van but they may have a a car or station wagon.
026Um actually coaches are uh can be certified to drive students. We always try to give them vans that we own if at all possible because those are the regulated ones that we inspect and we have on the road. Okay. Um, and you do have a transportation policy that says students should be transported in boardowned or, you know, certified vehicles as opposed to personal vehicles unless they certainly are driving themselves and that's another part of the statute. Okay, that that covers it. Thank you. Again, the same two were selected under the end of the options. The test will be considered positive and the employee will be retested on under this section. The staff member will be subject to disciplinary action. Under A, reports for duty or performs work while having an alcohol concentration and it was
027selected to be equal to the other. any detectable amount or greater or provide student transportation within 4 hours of after using alcohol. So it it does meet the same standard as the other one. And then it does say that they self submit for board approval a contract with a certified uh laboratory to provide the testing which we do have in place. And then we also have the notification to the tested candidate, the reported results and again the educational materials for certain board policies and procedures will be provided by the executive director of human resources or their designate because this is upon hire on J. the consequences for employees found to have an alcohol consumption of and we again selected equal to the other one any detectable amount. Now return to duty. In this case, what
028was selected was where the X is. The employees are removed from student transportation functions as a result of this policy must complete the following return to duty process which is the same and that is the end of that policy. So, this is brand new and we will be putting if approved, we will be putting notification out to the staff members that would qualify for that. Currently, we have approximately 40 people that do these kinds of transports, taking students to internships, taking students to work plans, taking uh safety uh officers that transport students home and board owned vehicles and as well as coaches. Okay. Any any questions? Uh do do we have training on these policies? How how is the if approved, how do we um actually for the ones that have been in place part
029of this for the CDL drivers are part of their annual requirement of training of four or more hours per year. In this case, for this particular one, we will roll this out working with our uh safety team director, our particular um CCA, and we will bring people in to go over these. Our next possible opportunity for training, if this is approved, would be January 16th or January 20th. probably won't be approved by then. I have a question. Yes, sir. When do these have to be approved? Actually, these are law. At this time, it is hoped that we would bring these back to the meeting of December 8th for final approval. Okay. So, we'd have to probably wave third. Yes. Uh the second reading to go to the third. Okay. Um this is 8600. This is
030our standard transportation update. This policy is just got some minor um adjustments to them due to the fact that you can now see in the second paragraph the addition of or alternative vehicles which we just explained are nine passenger or less. Yes sir. You said that a couple times. How did we get to nine or less? Um, when looking at the alternative, we've always had nine or less to begin with because that was all that we were allowed to have up until this recent change in House Bill 96. And we know that a you cannot get the 12 passenger units right now. And second, we know the weight is going to of the vehicle depending on what is purchased if they become available could require a CDL. and we do not want to put that
031uh other burden on trying to transport by smaller unit. One of the reasons for the alternative vehicle becoming part of this as they move through House Bill 96 was because of the lack of CDL bus drivers. So they were trying to come up with alternative ways to get students to school and to their events. So So can I ask you again? Yes. How did we come up with the if because House Bill 96 says 12 it we come up with we can always make it different than House Bill and and that's why we felt we could already meet the nine passenger standard and I guess that's what I'm asking for is a I'm not asking you to justify it. I'm just asking for the process that we came up with because that's currently what we
032own. Okay. is nine passengers and our cars obviously are standard car um and our van supports are also nine passenger or less. Okay. and and I asked that for superintendent general counsel because of course when we're looking at transportation we're also looking at finance and so um if if that's what we have now nine is what we have but um for financial reasons we may have to revisit that um but it doesn't matter now because we don't have anything but nine So, um, the strikeouts here were, um, to be in, uh, the code K through8 is currently living two more or miles for their address. That's been the state standard. Um, they just gave you the option to go ahead and change it if you needed to. But the nine uh the K through eight
0332 miles or more um we don't have all those different grade levels that you could put it out and make you know kindergarten noon cuz ours is all day. It it just makes it an option for schools that are smaller than our district and our teams. Now the um specification here is transportation of eligible v vocational or special education children between their home and area and schools. The as related service is really related to students with IEPs and those IEPs are written that transportation is a related service and Niola updated that to that paragraph. some uh I you know students with IEPs do not get transportation as a related service. It's not part of the plan. And the next one was a strikeout on the sentence transportation shall be provided each day the non-public school
034is open. the in which was not a grammat grammatical issue they wanted to keep because we are required to do each day the non-public school is open with students in attendance. In the last uh sentence of this paragraph, students transported to an approved community school may be assigned to ride on buses prov up upon which resident students attending other schools are also assigned and that has always been available. Um they just kind of rewrote the end of the sentence and I'll give you an example. We currently have two schools here in Akran um that are non-publiclix and we pick up one first and pick up the kids together and then we drop off at school A go drop off at school and B in the afternoon when they dismiss we pick up at school B
035go to school A and then we take this the students home. So this is just another way of rewriting the end of the sentence. Um, transportation of eligible non-public and or community school children between their home areas and schools shall be arranged through the use of boardowned or contracted services. And so that was reflected, I think, correctly, boarded, not school board. And then they also went and added through cooperation with other districts through commercial carriers or by means most efficient. The board will not provide or arrange for transportation of students enrolled in community or non-public chartered schools in any grades K through 8th grade using mass transit systems. You no longer can put a K through 8th grade student on a metro bus. That is a huge change. Um, some districts, not a public, have
036done this in the past and this would not allow students to be always transported with us by Metro. Then there was some grammatical changes to the next paragraph. Um, so obviously as you read it, it's and schedules for eligible students within 60 days of receiving the start and end times. So this is when they have to notify us that they are expecting Akan public schools to provide their transport and the deadline is April 1st. And these are non-public schools. These are non these are community non-public schools. That is correct. So, and and we're required to transport any student living within our school boundary that attends a community or charter a non-public school and elects to um be transported. Yes. So, um the the standard that we have for our Acropublic school students, um the two-mile
037um um K through eight. Yes. Uh two or more. Is that the same standard we use for non-public schools? Yes. Any standard that we put in, and I'll give you an example. If you would lower the standard say to 1 and a half miles for our students that attend our student uh schools, we have to lower the standard to non-public and charters equal to you must provide equal service. Okay. The next one is the board authorizes the superintendent to determine that it is impractical to transport. This is the payment in lie that you see us bring the resolution in uh July and then the sub subsequent listings that you see of the students that have been determined to be impractical to transport for one of six reasons. So there were just some modifications and um
038the one part which we always have done is uh and amount established by the state law and approved by the board and so that's why the resolution always comes the state standard for payment to a parent is set by the state in May. Um and then we approve each student in practical depending on their individual item. In this particular section, uh the sentence is now however the governing authority may not relinquish the transportation responsibility before the end of the school year and shall submit such notice. This is this is uh a change that did occur. Um once you start a transportation route for a school when they begin say in August, you cannot go in January and tell them that you are going to stop. You can notify them for the next school year but
039you cannot stop in the middle of the school year. Now the next sections we had previously these two sections have always been checked prior to this. What is the change is the green area bus route shall be established so that the authorized bus stops is available within a reasonable walking distance um but not more than half a mile for students in grades prek through 8. The board shall approve bus stops and a time schedule annually no more than 30 days prior to and no more than 30 days after the start of the school year. Most public school districts had felt that this was the start of its public school year. That is not the case anymore with this statute. It is each school. So, as an example, if we had a charter school start August
0401st, like our I promise school used to, then you must have this all done at least 30 days. So, it's beginning in July. It could go slightly later, but that's why the timing of this gets a little bit tightened up now with this change. The superintendent is authorized to make any necessary changes to the approved stops and routes which could occur because you will have students that will certainly change schools, enroll in a school, uh leave a school and we need to adjust those routes accordingly and each student will be assigned to a specific school bus stop except in unusual circumstances and approved by the superintendent. The district is not required to allow alternative stops based on shared parenting, daycare, or child care convenience. And that has been our standard here, but they have now
041codified it. And the rest was a strikeout. The bus um times and schedule only annually no more than 10 days that they changed that to the above statute. the strikeout for here. Um, you could check that students may be permitted to eat or drink on the bus. We did not check this and we do not want this to be checked for the safety of the students. This is due to a number of reasons. One's are choking hazards. As you travel, you wouldn't want a child to choke. And there's also the allergy issue. Something may be given to a student that is not appropriate due to a medical condition such as I'm going to say a Snickers bar that has peanuts in it and somebody is allergic to peanuts. When that has occurred, you have to
042immediately pull aside the road and call 911 and we just tell our bus drivers that you do not eat on buses. We've had that standard in for a long time. The next one is the addition of school buses and alternative vehicles now that that option is available. And the next one now gets into the board authorizes the use of an alternative vehicle such as a van designated to carry nine passengers or less and to transport eligible students to and from a chartered non-public community school. And we do do that. We have a number of um locations in which some of our APS students are transported due to uh assignment by the sped department to a specific school that is outside of our district such as LEAP um and um I'm trying to think of the
043other ones that are located in Portage and um northern Summit County. Yes. At alternatives. Thank you, Mr. Alexander. Yes, sir. Will this um it the this this policy strictly covers our employees and our students here. Okay. So that's another reason why we also had um the nine vehicles because it also did your contracts for your van support through Buckeye and Templeton at this time. This board policy actually is general transportation and it did say above that they contracted services. So therefore it would include your transportation by ban companies such as Buckeye and and Templeton. And these most of these additions and trans uh changes were available at the time that we were negotiating the contract and many of these are already in their current contract. I'm asking because as we review the independent contractors policy,
044it would seem that this would conflict because now we're directing work. So I I don't uh and you don't have to answer that now, but when we look at the independent contractors policy that we're looking at um that if state law allows for one thing and and we're limiting that u and and I'm assuming we have good reasons, but I I just want to make sure we're consistent with both policies. And then we still have uh we the drafting notice was just struck out because that gave you an explanation of the change from 9 to 12. Under C, the driver has a valid driver's license, is accustomed to driving the vehicle, and meets all statutory administrative requirements to drive the vehicle, including but not limited to pre-ervice and inservice training, pre-employment drug testing, criminal background
045checks, and participation in random drug testing. And this is the standard for all of our drivers, whether they are our drivers, whether they are our Peterman uh service drivers and our contracted companies. The district shall implement policies and/or programming for bus drivers that include professional development, annual performance reviews, and access to the wellness support programming as provided by DEDW and OPS. That is all in place now. The next drafting notice just didn't need to be left because that's back to alternative vehicles. But they did change the following. Drivers of alternative vehicles must conduct daily pre-trip inspections and alternative vehicles must be inspected not less than two times a year. Excuse me. That standard has been in place for a long time. And that's inspected by us. Yes, that is or in this case um by
046the actual company that you do. Excuse me for a minute. an actual company. Um so Peterman does their particular um inspection and so does Buckeye and Trans and um Templeton and those reports are available to us as well as to the Ohio Department of Highway Patrol that oversees our transportation. This is the statute for the McKini Vento homeless student. And the only change here is um that the students meeting the federal definition of homeless will be transported via an approved method as appropriate. And some of our students qualify for buses, some of them qualify for orthopedic buses, and some of them qualify for band transport. And that's the end of that particular policy. Any other questions on this policy? If not, we'll continue. We'll go to the next one. This is 860004. Now, it was
047titled before bus driver certification. Now, it is bus and alternative vehicle driver certification. So as you go through this, it is the fact that we now every time you talk about a bus, you're adding the alternative vehicle drivers must obtain and hold proper certifications. and they already do have those and those certifications are when they are completed are also part of the system at ODU that is available to the transportation department and 21 years of age is the minimum uh age to operate a ban and 21 is the age that is um in which we also have our school bus drivers do this particular type of meeting qualifications. Um the next was state pupil transportation regulations. It's just an ad. It's always been state student. They updated that. And then due is to determine that
048such drivers meet the following qualifications at a minimum. So these are no changes here in the sections. These qualifications have been standard for a long time. And E is selected not receive any violations that renders the bus driver uninsurable by the district's fleet insurance. And I will explain that once you get six points or more, our insurance carrier will not uh ensure them to drive. Uh again, you had school bus and now it is or van driver district certification. They put CDL in parentheses this time and is and also um then went ahead and put district certification. The next update is all drivers shall be enrolled in the retained applicant fingerprint database which is correct. We all do that upon hire. And in this case, drivers and van drivers are reertified every 6 years. Regular
049employees such as teachers or every five. Uh DEW has not changed the bus drivers to or van drivers to anything but six. satisfactory shall be defined as the standards in the administrative code 33018323. So it's now specified and then the next one is and we highlighted it in blue um as we have discussed this one. So, as you read through it, any driver who has been convicted of or pleaded guilty to any disqualifying offense shall not be hired or shall be released from employment unless the person meets the rehabilitation standards. Some of these rehabilitation standards do not qualify to be rehabilitated. Um, but we highlighted it in blue um just to say it was there, but we did not select it. And now they've now struck out the word bus because you're basically talking about
050drivers. No driver will be permitted to drive a school bus or alternative vehicle transporting students unless the driver meets all other requirements contained in the rules adopted by DEW prescribing qualifications of drivers of school buses or alternative vehicles. In addition, no driver will be permitted to drive a school bus or alternative vehicle transporting a student unless and then it's A and B. The check is the superintendent shall provide for the annual physical exams conforming to DEEW standards to determine the driver's physical fitness for employment. And that is the T8. It must be performed. You can start taking a T8 physical in May and you must have it completed and on file and pass that particular T8 prior to being able to continue to drive once the new school year is started. And then the last
051one is these drivers must have an annual physical. And it they took out the word highway patrol at this point because it's not the highway patrol that determines the physical and the driver is not employed by the school who drives a bus or vehicle owned must give satisfactory and sufficient bond. And that is the last update for this one. Any questions on this this policy? Okay, we'll continue. Okay, so now we're at 8640. This is transportation for non-rine trips. As you will remember, we do have a resolution for non-rine trips. So now we have gone ahead and they have updated this policy to reflect not only school buses but alternative vehicles. Again, the pre-trip inspections must be conducted no matter what vehicle you are driving. Question. Go ahead. Yes, sir. Can can you explain for
052the um public The non-rine trips are any trip a bus or band takes that is not taking a student to and from school on a daily basis. So, this would be athletic trips, it could be field trips, it could be work to duty trips because some of ours do internships during the day. So it's anything that is not directly from home to school and from home or from school to home. And then um they did add in the next uh section the school buses may include multi-function school activity buses which meet all school construction standards but are not equipped with traffic control devices. So, I want you to think of traveling in downtown Akran and the Scat buses or what I you will see u come the what we call the Rube buses. Those are
053not constructed in the same way. They do not have the stop arms when they pull to the side of the road. That's the construction they're talking about. Alternative vehicles may include passenger vehicles designated by the manufacturer for nine passengers or less, not including the driver. And these multi-function school activity buses and alternative vehicles may only be used for pointto-point transportation and are prohibited from dropping off or picking up students at other locations such as their home. So, this is strictly taking to your point in your question, we're picking up a team of golfers at say North to go golf and we're taking them back to North. And then we uh went through the Darius options that they listed there. These were the current standards that we operate under are the ones checked by X. The
054board shall provide the vehicles for all other trips, including co-curricular, athletic, and other extracurricular trips, but a mileage charge and personnel charge shall be assessed to cover the cost of the driver in the fuel. This is this charge is to be paid by the sponsoring organization from a designated fund. This is our standard procedure when we uh need to transport outside the normal school day for field trips. trans and uh so as an example some trips are actually sponsored by a community organization and we build them accordingly. A mileage per hour for the driver is currently $40 an hour and the mileage is whatever the trip is on the IRS rate which is currently 70 cents a mile. Yes sir. So if if if we have an organization, we have a school or an organization
055that do not have a fund and we need to transport children, do we absorb that cost? Um um there are some supportive funding available in certain designated um departments that will step up to provide that support. So let me ask a different question. Do we ever deny kids transportation to extracurricular activities because they do not have a fund? No, we do not. Uh, the next one checked is transportation may be limited to the availability of vehicles, drivers, and scheduling and will not be available when needed for general purpose school purposes. So, we're taking you back and forth to school daily, but you need to do a field trip when we are taking students home. And in that case, we do have uh 12 current vendors that are certified with insurance, etc. that we can charter
056for and with. And then all field trips must be supervised by the members of the staff. All other district sponsored trips shall be supervised by either staff members or adults from the sponsoring organization as approved by the superintendent. Anytime students are on the vehicle, at least one sponsor, chaperon, or staff member is expected to be in the vehicle as well as to supervise students upon return to the district and while they are waiting for rides home. This is been our standard for many years and it's very successful. The next one checked is all students are expected to ride the approved vehicle to and from the activity. A special request must be made to the staff member or sponsored sponsor by the parent in writing or in person to allow an exception. There is an exception
057that can be done. Um and we then can go into the next part of the next to it. So as an example, if I wanted my son to drive himself to an event, there is a form 5515F2 that must be completed. We acknowledge that I am allowing Ryan to drive and he is not to drive anybody else. He's driving for a reason. Sometimes he really just can already, you know, he's a senior in high school. He has his own car and he can drive to and from the event, but our real passion here is that they will go on the vehicles with the team and with the coaches that are supervising them. Yes, sir. What if a um kid is transported on the bus, let's say, to a football game and they're at the game
058and their parents at the game and the parent wants to take them home. Can they go with the parent? Is that special circumstances or um they could only if the coach does the approval that other than that they're expected to be back on the bus. Okay. That doesn't require parent approval. It requires the parent to go up to the coach and say, "I'd like Ryan to go home with the parent." The coach is the only other one that can make that determination. Now, what if another a parent wants to another parent to take the kid that can No, it's only the guardian of the child. Guardian. Okay. Thank you. And then the last one, the superintendent may enter into a contract with a public or private notfor-profit agency group or organization, with a municipal corporation
059or other political subdivision or agency of the state, or with an agency of the federal government to operate its buses to assist the agency, group, organization, or political subdivision in fulfillment of its legitimate activities and in times of emergency. the district may recover expenses from contracting entities not to exceed the cost of the operation and the insurance coverage. So this is one of those as you are aware we have helped out the city of Akran on emergencies occasionally um to relocate um uh people as an example for the fire that happened over off of Arlington in which evacuations were happening. we were helping to provide those assistances and that's the end of this policy. Okay. Any more questions on this polar? I have a couple questions on the the the one that we we talked
060about. I I think language really matters. Um may I ask the board shall provide the vehicles for all other trips including um co-curricular um and the mileage should charge and personal charges be assessed to cover the cost of the vehicle and fuel the um because we don't have an equity policy um I think we have to be very careful with language in every policy um and the way this reads could prohibit people from even attempting to get transportation. So, if we've never denied anyone transportation uh based on their ability to pay or not, um I think charging this to whomever is an administrative function. We we have to find somewhere to put the cost of this this vehicle, right? So, I understand that, but I don't think it should be in policy. Um, because it's
061ambiguous as far as if I'm a teacher, if I'm a parent, um, and I say, "Well, I I want to go I want to take the kids here. I want to take these students here, but we don't have the funds to cover the cost of the vehicle, of the fuel, of the mileage. So, I I don't see a purpose of having this end if we don't deny kids the ability to go places. Can you help me with that? Sometimes we All right. So, it depends on when you're asking for us to transport. Yes, we can deny because we don't have any vehicles. That's why we have chartered bus services to our service providers that can help us do it. Um, but we do everything possible to get our students and the people that we're talking
062about charging and I'll give an example. We've had Acronu um sometimes say, "Hey, we'd like kids to go to a basketball game, but we're to invoice Acronu for the transport." That's what this is about. It's not necessarily the teacher taking somebody to the apple orchard internally because we do have priorities on. So, that's an administrative function. Mhm. That is so let's put that in administrative guideline and not have it in the policy. I I I don't like to put in a policy that we're charging if we're not charge if we're not if that is not something that that will prevent, you know, someone let's say u our homeless population. Mhm. We're taking them to the art museum. Mhm. Okay. Um, we know where that funding will come from. We know who we will build that
063to. Okay. But when you have something like that in a policy and it reads that we're going to charge X YZ, that's still a barrier. That's a barrier to some of our students. That's a barrier to some of our programming that we do in our with our students in in the schools. And so if we're going to find someone to um charge that to or we're going to eat it or we're not going to charge, we don't need to have that we're charging in a policy. Um there are occasional times um and I will say this to you uh it it's rare that it has done but we've had uh public school districts and us cooperate to take students on college trips and we bill half of that to the other districts. So I'm just
064giving you some ways that we try to cover the cost. Yeah. And and I'm fine with that. I'm just saying let's not put we're charging in the policy if we have an administrative function that we do. I'm sorry. Did I cut you off? Go ahead. Sorry to interrupt, member. No, I just wanted to mention that that language is in the current policy. I'm not, you know, disagreeing or anything. I just wanted to remind everybody that will be a a withdrawal from the current policy as well. And and we're we're going to have to review. And that's the purpose that we need to look at the entirety of the policy when we're changing language. and and and it's especially now that we don't have our our our anchor policy, which is a the the equity policy
065to make sure all of our students are treated fair and that they get what they need. So now we have to look at every policy to make sure that that's anchored in every policy. And I'm just saying when we when we make cost a factor, okay, we are a public school district, you know, we we we operate on public dollars and we serve all students and I think our policies need to reflect that. So if you know, I don't want to get hung up on this. We we can come back to this, but let's let's really take a look at that because language matters. I'm going I'm going to be a little devil's advocate on that and let's say that um it's not in the policy but then we want to charge them but then
066I I'm the other organization in Aken public school said we need to charge you for this here but you said it's not in your policy that you charge so I can't charge you put it in administrative guidelines but administrative guidelines it's a procedure process absolutely right but the policy is what it is and what you need to follow and what you need to do uh no if if we if we transport. If if cost is not a factor of kids going to one place or another, then we don't need to have it in the policy that it is. But what happens if we need to charge somebody and we can't say it's not in your policy? I'm I'm the devil's advocate. I'm the agency that you're going to want to charge us to say we're
067going to do. So, I'm going to say I you don't have that in your policy. It doesn't have we don't have lunches outlined in our policy, but we going to pay for it. No, because we know what we charge for lunches. Okay, that's that's part of it. That's a different but you when you have something in there, you got to have something in there. If you don't, then you can't charge. And if we don't charge and then who's going to pay for that? We just said we're going to pay for everything. Well, no, we just said that if if the people if the students, if the organization don't have money that they don't fail, we don't fail. Not we don't not transport them. We transport them. Yeah. But not if it's Akan. You said we
068used Akanu as Akran. was one of the uh examples and akinu says well we don't have to charge you got to do it on on your dime so we can't charge au when we need to charge them no I'm not saying we can't charge them if it's not in the policy I'm saying I'm just being devil's advocate and I'm saying if if you don't have it in your policy and I'm acting you and you say you're going to charge me I'm going to say it's not in your policy to charge what it say I have you charge me I'm not going to I'm not going to pay you well you're an administrative guideline specialist you put it in administration that's what I'm trying to tell you administrative guidelines is something totally different. You have a
069policy is one thing. Administrative guidelines different. Administrative guidelines tells you exactly how to follow the policy. Okay? And the policy says what the policy actually is and it tells you in depth what the policy what is in the policy. So the policy says we have to charge them. Administrative guidelines said you got to get form this do this do this and do this and get it done. Those two different things. So administrative guideline is a policy. It's not a policy. It's two different things. So then let's put in the policy that we do not refuse to charge, we do not refuse to transport based on the ability to pay or inability to pay. One other thing I would like to bring to um Mr. Alexander's comments certain grants are written to for support various items.
070Part of those grants include the fact that charge uh they've supported in their request for funding for transportation. Right? So therefore those guidelines are based on the policy that we can and that's how it is built into the grant. So when you then work on the grant and you work with the treasur's office, you have to show how you're using the grant correctly as to how it was awarded including the transportation. Right. Administrative functions. Okay. And so when the grant says administrative functions, we don't list everything that comes under administrative functions. We don't list every paper clip, every piece of paper. We don't list all of that. We categorize that under one category. Okay. And yes, ma'am. Member Harrison, I'm trying to um make sure this is accurate at this time in this discussion, but
071there are times that our CH students are charged. I think about our CCAA programming. We had students come here from North asking us to pay because it wasn't in our budget to pay for them to go. So, we have we do have a limited budget and we do identify which activities they're going to participate in. And so there may be a time that the boosters will raise money so that kids can go certain places and they pay you know so there are times that I'm saying we charge the student righties we're talking about plane tickets there you know they came they wanted transportation like a bus to Columbus I I understand that but I'm saying if we are allowing kids students to participate if we want participation cost should not be a reason for children,
072students not to participate. And so what what we're now we're talking about transportation, we're talking about mileage, we're talking about a driver. So I just want to stay gerine to this. I understand the the the students that came down for North and I understand it was a lot of money um that the district incurred that we were not expecting to incur. But now we're doing we're talking about a policy. Okay? And we're talking about transportation. We're talking about mileage. And we're talk we're specifically talking about the cost of the driver and mileage. So I I want to just keep it narrow there. And we can come back to this, but I'm never going to look at we're a public school district. We we we get public funding, okay? And we're we're a district of the
073halves and the have nots, okay? And we want to make sure everyone is taken care of and everyone has the same opportunities. And if pay is one, then we as a district need to mitigate that. But we can't charge because those who have it to pay can pay. And if we're saying we're not denying transportation to anybody based on cost, then we shouldn't have it in the policy. May I make a suggestion? If you look at that sentence and and it says, "The board shall provide the vehicles for all other trips, including co-curricular, athletic, and other extracurricular trips, but a mileage charge and personnel charge instead of the word shall may be assessed to cover the cost of the driver and the fuel." Too ambiguous. We can come back to this another time. Thank you.
074because I I I will because I will continue to disagree with that because you gota okay you got to have some way to pay and we we're talking about we don't have money but then we're talking about paying for everything but you we on one hand we don't have money other hand we're paying for everything we can't can't handle both we don't have the finances because we pay for what we want and we beg for what we need not always no and what we're saying basically what we're saying is that we want to make sure all of our students get an opportunity to do that and it means that we have to charge acrony you because they have the finances or some other organization so that our kids can go then we we charge them
075you know if not then they don't go. So now we're saying do our kids go or they don't go. They don't go because there's the money available. But if if if if this corporation over here or if this university over here or if this organization over here wants to to pay to help our kids go then yes we we we can charge them that because they have the money. But if we don't we then we some of our kids don't go because we may not be able to afford it. Our budget is already tight and it's getting tighter. So we we those kids won't go. So, we have to find other ways such as this here to charge people to to to make sure our kids have an opportunity to to go on these trips
076and have these experiences they really need. So, I mean, if you guys can want to come back and and uh you know, address this here, you can, but I think that you you need to have that in there because if not, and I and I I I would when if it ever happens, I'll be one of the first ones here to say it does it did happen and I told you it shouldn't happen because we we won't be allowing our kids to go. So um we'll move on. Our last one is 68650 transportation by alternative vehicles. And this is the one that goes through um when the transportation of students by school bus is not practical. Then the board of education may provide transportation to students via boardowned vehicles andor operated or contracted alternative vehicles.
077And this is the standard that has been in place. Uh it is reflecting the same type of information that has been in the earlier policies. Um passenger vehicles meet the capacity restrictions. The number of students in vehicles does not exceed nine which we have discussed previously. Um this one doesn't have a lot of changes. Again, the driver's age is 21, which is selected there at the top of the second page. And that is the end of that particular policy. Okay. Any questions on this policy? Um, brother Chair, this is another policy that we need to uh make sure is consistent with the OC um policy. um the uh independent contractors and it currently is. Well, no, we're reviewing that. Well, I just meant it meets the current vehicles that are in their contract. Thank you.
078Okay. Uh any other questions? No other questions. Okay. Um I will look at our legal person. Do we have anything else we need to discuss uh or go over that? If not, then we will we'll move on. Those were the policies that we had on the agenda for this evening. Okay. All right. If there's uh any other questions or comments or concerns. If uh there are not, we will adjourn this meeting at uh 6:48. Thank you for everyone who has participated and watched. Have a good evening.