The Paulding County School Board on July 8 reviewed 14 proposed policy and administrative regulation revisions that mostly reflect changes made by the Georgia General Assembly this year. The superintendent’s office and district staff presented the changes and said the board will be asked to adopt them at the July 22 meeting.

"Administrative regulations are simply our interpretation," Superintendent Barnett said, describing the district practice of presenting material regulatory changes so the board is aware. Dr. Jason Gregatus told the board, "13 of those 14 have to do with legislation that was passed," noting one revision is an internal regulatory update.

The proposals include changes required by House Bill 137 that raise the competitive threshold for public-works contracts from $100,000 to $250,000; updates tied to Senate Bill 154 to reference the U.S. Department of Education (and its successor) in harassment policy language; and a new requirement to notify employees about Social Security participation and withholdings on hiring, every five years and at separation.

Staff also proposed changes to employee leave policies after House Bill 235 to add leave for bone marrow and organ donation and to correct paid parental leave language from 120 to 240 hours. The board was shown a model policy from the Georgia School Boards Association (GSBA) addressing the Riley Gaines Act (gender equity in sports) and revisions to the district’s Internet acceptable-use policy tied to House Bill 351 and statewide cybersecurity requirements.

District staff described a substantial revision to the grading policy (IHAR). The draft contains new academic-honesty language addressing artificial intelligence, clarifies teacher discretion on grade recovery, and — notably — changes fourth- and fifth-grade reporting back from a mastery-based system to numerical grades.

Attendance-related changes reflect Senate Bill 123 and other amendments to Georgia’s compulsory-attendance code. Gregatus said the policies incorporate updated excused-absence language for students with parents on active duty and other model-policy language from GSBA. Several draft policies implement requirements from House Bill 268 (the school-safety bill) on transfers, withdrawals and the timeliness and parental notice for student-record transfers.

Board members and staff also discussed operational questions. A board member asked, "As far as the student attendance, what do we really follow through with truancy? I mean, do we really like, our our service department, they follow through with all that and it still doesn't make a difference?" Staff replied that the district follows required steps and that Gary Plunkett and attendance officers handle documentation, reporting to the courts and partner outreach.

No formal votes were taken on the policy package at the July 8 meeting. Staff said the proposals will return as a recommendation for board approval at the July 22 meeting. District officials provided board members with redlined summaries and attached the full revised language to the meeting agenda for review.

The presentation covered a broad set of state-driven changes that the district said are largely model-policy updates from GSBA and statutory compliance edits; staff emphasized this is not a new wave of policies but an alignment to state law and refined local practice.