Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Read the policy handbook!

Somewhere in that stack of stuff coming home over the next few days is a Student Policy Handbook (last year's is online here; I'm checking into where this year's is). If you're a parent of a student younger than high school, you're supposed to sign the back and tear it off (students in high school do this themselves).
Two things you should know:

  • The reverse side of the back cover has a couple of "opt in" statements, largely in terms of publicity (can your child's work go up on the WPS website? can your child be in the press?). If you wish to say  "no" to any of these statements, you need to check the appropriate box. Otherwise, your agreement is inferred.
  • More importantly, read the book. This is how the schools are--or are supposed to be--run. Along the same lines, if you have classroom policy statements coming home that don't agree with the policy handbook*, the classroom policy cannot supercede the district policy (and yes, you should politely point this out). 
*yes, I've heard of this happening. 

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