Concord School Board reviews major rewrite of Policy 4-15 on sexual and gender-based harassment

Concord School Board members and district staff spent a working session reviewing a new draft of Policy 4-15, the district's policy addressing sexual- and gender-based harassment, and agreed to several substantive changes and follow-up steps.

The board's discussion focused on whether to keep or remove the 2020 language requiring harassment to be “severe, pervasive and objectively offensive,” how to treat Title IX versus non-Title IX harassment, and clarifying consent when an employee and a student are involved. Kara (School board member) described the redlined draft as “language that is inserted from the go by from the New Hampshire School Board Association” and said she had added color-coded comments to make proposed changes visible.

Board members said the policy must be clear about process and definitions and must protect both complainants and respondents while avoiding overly strict thresholds that would discourage reporting. “I would eliminate it entirely, I think, because I think when you deal with examples like that in cases like this, then it leaves people out that may be…,” Pam (School board member) said, arguing against retaining the 2020 test that required all three elements of severe, pervasive and objectively offensive conduct.

Staff and board members discussed and reached direction on a set of specific edits: remove the board’s illustrative definitions of “severe, pervasive and objectively offensive” from the policy text rather than leaving a high legal bar in the policy; replace informal terms such as “harasser” and “victim” with the policy terms “respondent” and “complainant”; add explicit language that no student can consent to sexual conduct with a district employee; and make the district’s reporting expectation a 24-hour requirement for employees rather than “by the end of the next school day.”

Karen (Staff member) and others noted cross-references throughout the draft to existing board policies (for example, 161.1, 4-14 and 5-39) and to outside authorities such as the New Hampshire Department of Education and federal Office for Civil Rights guidance; the group asked staff to correct citations and to standardize wording (for example, always writing “board policy” rather than “school board policy”).

The committee also discussed operational points: identifying and defining the Initial Decision Maker (IDM) and Appeal Decision Maker (ADM) consistently, keeping training materials and other records, documenting the basis for any conclusion that the district's response was not “deliberately indifferent,” and ensuring that supportive measures and confidentiality provisions follow state and federal requirements.

No formal vote was taken; the board instructed staff to prepare a revised draft that implements the changes discussed and to return it at a future meeting for further review. The board also asked staff to (1) replace the terms “harasser” and “victim” with “respondent” and “complainant” throughout the draft, (2) explicitly note in the consent definition that students cannot consent to sexual conduct with staff, (3) remove the 2020 examples of severe/pervasive/objectively offensive conduct, and (4) standardize capitalization and citations across the document.

Board members said they expect staff to circulate the revised draft with the suggested edits and with corrected statutory and board-policy citations, and to consult with district counsel and affected committees (for example, wellness and legal counsel) before the next presentation.

The board’s next procedural steps include: staff revision of Policy 4-15; circulation to board members and key committees; and return to the board for formal consideration and potential adoption at a future posted meeting.