Thursday, August 14, 2014

Proposed discipline policy changes

At next week's meeting, the Worcester School Committee will be considering a proposed series of changes to the discipline policies in the student handbook. This is in response to the new regulations from the state.
Note: contrary to what GoLocal reported today, these are proposed changes; there are no changes until they're voted by the School Committee. 
I've only done a preliminary review, but I'm uneasy about a number of the changes proposed (quite aside from what's necessary due to the change in regulation), as it doesn't appear to me that we're really tackling what the point of the regulations changes were.
You can find the letter with the legal overview here. The code of conduct (with proposed changes) is here. The legal policies are here.
While they are not policy changes, we also have been notified of a number of new letters and forms: notice of disciplinary charges to parent/guardian;  notice of in-school suspension; notice of short-term suspension; notice of long-term suspension; emergency temporary removal letter; and notice to the superintendent (from a principal) of the intent to suspend a pre-kindergarten to third grade student.
Please take a look at them and let us know what you think.
As always, you can get me at novickt (at) worc.k12.ma.us or all of us at SchoolCommittee (at) worc.k12.ma.us. Alternatively, the meeting at which this will be discussed is at 4pm Thursday, August 21 at City Hall. 

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