District staff reported on Oct. 13 that the Washington County School District will use the state public-education hotline to comply with a recently enacted state board rule requiring districts to publish how individuals report alleged statutory or rule violations.

"What we have done is we've established a notice that basically mimics exactly what the state has put together on their website. We use the state public education hotline, because if we were to duplicate the same thing in house, it would cost enormous amounts of money," district staff member Jeremy told the board, summarizing the staff recommendation to link to the state hotline rather than build a district system.

Jeremy said the district must amend policy language to reflect the requirement and train executive staff. He told the board that the state will provide initial case handling, and that the district will identify which internal staff will address particular complaints once the state forwards reports. He recommended a policy change in policy 1730 to reference the hotline and said staff would place a link on the district website.

Separately, staff reviewed multiple policy updates. The board heard that policy 2310 (child abuse and neglect) had not been updated in 29 years; staff revised references to current state code, clarified that teachers are mandatory reporters and removed outdated procedures tied to oral reporting in favor of online reporting to DCFS. A staff presenter, Brad, said the updated language emphasizes that notifying a school official does not relieve an employee of the duty to report to the Division of Child and Family Services.

The board also reviewed updates to policies concerning employee leave accruals (bringing teacher personal leave to be available on hire day 1, matching a previous change for classified staff), changes in homeschooling notification to align with new state law, and minor wording updates (for example, replacing "lockout" with "secure" in safety terminology).

Board members asked clarifying questions about timelines and implementation. Jeremy said the district will formalize the policy change in a future meeting and that staff member Cody had prepared the website notice for board review. No formal votes occurred at the working session on these policy changes; staff indicated they would bring formal policy revisions for action in a subsequent meeting.

Board members also asked for follow-up training for school administrators and SROs on the updated child-abuse reporting procedures and confirmation that the district's website notice would include the state hotline link.