001thank you good evening everyone and welcome to November 22nd legal contracts and board policy meeting we'll call this meeting to order has anyone had any everyone had a chance to read the meeting minutes from last meeting any questions no questions okay we will get started with our our agenda for this evening and I want to turn over now to Mrs Fidel sure thank you Mr Alexander um is there a particular order you'd like me to go in or am I free to just okay I thought I would start with um the revisions to the pronoun policy for students and employees at the last board meeting there was one requested change to remove the language of Case by case and to put swap that out for individual or individualized depending on the context so we made
002that small edit the policy is now ready for a third and final reading and if this committee sees it fit we could get that probably scheduled for the November 28th meeting if not that meeting then the December meeting okay yes we can put that on the agenda for our next meeting so we can get this taken care of and move on okay next board meeting yeah next board meeting yes yes I'm sorry next board meeting next board meeting yes the 28th yeah correct um so then the the next series of items on the agenda are all from the latest round of the Neola updates um so they're we're going to have a steady stream of a bunch of Neola updates for this committee to consider um there's because of the pandemic there's really two updates
003we're trying to fit into one and then we're going to be getting another update here in January so there's going to be quite a few Neola policies coming through for their first reading um and and we'll try and space those out as best as we can but we do want to make sure that we get those updates out there now that we've had some staff review and comments on all those policies so the ones for today are pretty straightforward um and I thought I'd start with some of the the most straightforward one so I'd like to refer you to um policy 5460.01 diploma referral this is actually a new policy for Akron public schools it had been a Neola form policy in the past but had never been adopted um this has been reviewed by
004the relevant administrators and they like the policy it's things that the district had already been doing but they think it's a good idea to make sure that we have something in writing so there's no there's no comments um in terms of like changes or any red flags there is one option at the end of the policy and that option has been selected for um quarter not semester and in some this policy really has to do with any special education student any student on an IEP for them to have a social graduation so in other words they may not have completed all their goals on their IEP or they may be able to stay under the care of the um to be educated until they're 22 years old but they can socially graduate with their peers
005at 18. and so this sets out the parameters for that and how the district handles those types of situations so it's something we had been doing but had not been formally put in a policy Neola put this out we took a look at it and think it's a good idea to go ahead and memorialize that in writing as part of board policy so that's the update for the diploma referral any questions I'm just gonna make a comment I thought this is what we did anyhow for for years it just seemed like we're putting it on paper not wasn't sure that we didn't have a policy but we do now so yeah it's exactly what we've been doing but we've never put it on paper as part of the formal policies got it thank you perfect
006so the next one I I wanted to discuss is policy 7440.03 it's small unmanned aircraft systems um this is a current APS policy and this governs the use they call it small unarmed aircraft systems but for all intents and purposes we're talking about drones and so this really the the the only update here is updating the federal citation the the federal this is governed by the FAA the use of drones and so that Federal citation has changed so Neola suggested that we indicate that on this policy and they suggested that we pass it with this updated citation so that there's Clarity for anyone who's who's looking at this policy so this is a really minor edit and something that Neola encourages all the boards to pass who have this policy in place which we do
007any questions on this one perfect so the next one I wanted to touch base on is policy 8330 Student Records this is most definitely an existing policy that the district has and again these are um muella suggested minor edits to this this very lengthy policy and the Crux of the edits are that there's been a change in state law to the safe at home program so this is a program that assists survivors of domestic violence trafficking rape sexual assault from shielding their address in public records the state law was updated so that now a person who qualifies for this program has some sort of identification card or piece of paper from the Secretary of State demonstrating that they can be a part of this program and so this this policy is updated to show that
008a person has to produce that that record or that identification card in order to be enrolled in this program and what that would mean then is they are given a sort of substitute address that is in any document that might be available to the public so and that we couldn't release their real address we would only be able to release their substitute address as approved by the Secretary of State so those are the changes to the student record policy any questions my question so the last part where it says safe homes that's the only piece other than the kind of little minor he or she is that we changed in this policy that's correct yep there's always there's often some technical cleanup making words gender neutral and things like that but the substantive changes here
009has to do with the safe at home program okay thank you and again this was a suggested must pass from Neola as well because of the state law change any questions on this policy so the next one is um policy 8320 this is Personnel files um and again there are very minor updates to this some Cleanup in terms of creating more gender neutral language within the policy and then again a reference to that safe at home program about a valid confidentiality program authorized by the secretary of state so again that same sort of cleanup with respect to the state law change on the safe at home program is also reflected in the personnel file changes and again this is an existing Neola policy with the district and a Neola recommendation as a must-pass policy any
010questions on Personnel files okay so the next one I like to draw your attention to is policy 3120.08 and this is employment of personnel for co-curricular and extracurricular activities so this is an existing policy of the district and this policy governs either teachers who are on some sort of supplemental contract or a non-teaching professional who would be under a limited pupil activity contract who's either a coach they oversee an extracurricular activity things of that nature and this policy they're trying to clean up language and clarify that a person who's not already a teacher or doesn't hold some other license must have um a pupil activity program permit by the state of Ohio before they can be a coach or another sort of person that's overseeing an extracurricular activity for the district so it's really making
011sure that everyone understands that you can't work with children unless you have this this permit from the state you can't get paid for your job and things like that the policy in general just also just you know talks about how any person who's hired for these types of positions whether it's coaching or some other extracurricular has to do a background check and prove that they have the credentials and this people activity permit so that they can be employed by the district lawfully so again this is cleanup language just really clarifying that you know these pupil activity permits must be in Hand by the district before they can be employed in any sort of co-curricular or extracurricular oversight role with the district any questions about this one [Music] so the next one I'd like to draw
012your attention to is policy 6700 Fair labor standards Act so there's been a couple of some cleanup language in here again um making sure that uh you know some of the the language is more gender neutral and then there's been an addition to this policy for um reasonable time for nursing mothers this there's been no no law change here the district has had a fair labor standards act policy but Neola flagged this as something to memorialize in the policy because I think based on the feedback they're getting there might be some confusion about policies for nursing mothers and providing um space for them to express milk and things like that so if you're a an employee covered by the flsa the flsa does provide an independent right for nursing mothers to have access to space
013to express milk and to have time to do that within their job duties so this has been a current law it's just never been added to the Neola platform policy it certainly wasn't in the districts as written this would all be new so it's new policy but it's it's law that's already been in place and I think you know there's often a lot of confusion on this point because like the Affordable Care Act does something various laws impose certain requirements on employers to have sort of lactation rooms and things like that but this is something specific for employees covered by the fair labor standards act and for the purposes of the school district that would typically be your non-professional staff any questions on this common this is something that's already been probably been practiced even
014that's right in policy that's right yeah yeah that's right because it's been current law for some years now it's just again we never it's never been written in our policy and Neil has never provided it as something that should be included in our policy but it is now it is the law so we want to memorialize that in a way that makes sense okay got it thank you any questions on this one um the next one I want to draw your attention to is policy 8600 this is transportation um the transportation policy for the district has gone through I do believe there might be some additional edits to this this has been reviewed by by Deborah and her team and signed off but I do think there might be some additional changes here as you
015know there has been a number of State Law changes on Transportation over the past two years um from the pandemic starting really with the pandemic but those changes seem to still be coming and a lot of that has to do with the district's responsibility to transport students at chartered non-chartered private schools at what point and in when can we do payment in lieu you know what does payment in lieu look like and so this policy is um updated based on the current state law and is something that Neola suggests that we we do pass but I do want to I do believe that this is in good form now but we probably want to keep looking at this because those laws just keep changing um and so there could be more that needs to be
016added to this but this is um this is the latest version that Neola has put out any questions about this one nothing okay all right I was I I saw you guys all right you're waiting very patiently yes I was just like Okay um and then the the last one is um policy eight two one zero this is school calendar um and this is not necessarily um the the district had this policy in place this is the latest update from Neola um and the the main thing here is it's allowing the the district to decide if they're going to do a calendar annually or biannually um and then it also references that the the state law has changed now in terms of when you can go you can't just go remote anymore how many days
017you can bring a blizzard bag and things like that so this is they're minor edits but I do think they're pretty impactful um but again there's is a policy that the board already had these are suggestions that for Neola to update it um and so that's really what this one is is conveying here any questions he said this was biannually right because we checked biannually actually I think we did have to update this one right Heidi the school calendar one yes so I think there might be an old version that we had an old version okay all right that we can get that we can get that one updated and maybe hold on this one if you guys don't have the most current this would be the most concurrent though right this year we had
018to we had to update it earlier today though oh okay got it got it okay but we we actually can bring you know there's no urgent Necessities no no so we we definitely wait for the new version in case there's any other changes I can get it later completely yeah we can do that for her okay those are all the updates the updates okay um is there anything else that we need to go over today no other news updates and we do have the two policies that will have our third reading on our next board meeting correct correct okay all right any questions all right well I guess we'll chair in this meeting if we have nothing else and uh everyone have a Happy Thanksgiving enjoy your family and friends and be safe thank you
019this is a perfect focused meeting right before the holidays all right thank you okay we adjourned