District administrators presented a third draft of the employee handbook and a package of policy updates at the Sept. 4 work session; trustees asked for small corrections and for the handbook to be published after edits.
Staff said the third draft includes clarified criminal and personnel background-check language, added guidance on e-learning days for excessive heat (placed within inclement-weather guidelines), and updated contact and organizational details. Trustees noted page-number placement and a missing inner-page number and requested a minor page correction before final publication.
The policy committee recommended first readings of multiple policies, including: an audio-and-recording-of-meetings policy to align with an adopted policy on parent recording, revisions to assessment references to replace iSTEP with iLearn, updates to department-of-education diploma language, and multiple governance items (organizational meeting timing, trustee term length changes from three to four years, eligibility age updates from 21 to 18, and the board-compensation item returning as a first read). Trustees and counsel discussed where each new or revised policy should be placed in the overall code and agreed to assign policy numbers upon adoption.
Trustees also asked staff to include a parent-decorum letter in printed materials and to ensure handbook pages distributed to the board reflect corrections. Staff said the handbook will be published and distributed to schools, and that Mr. Torres would handle physical posting of boards in central offices.