Rowan County board reviews statewide KSBA policy updates including electronic communications rule

The Rowan County Board of Education on June 17 reviewed a set of KSBA policy revisions and state-driven changes that would require local policy updates, including naming one traceable electronic communication system for any employee or volunteer to use with students.

The packet presented by instructional staff member Miss Carver said the district received the KSBA revisions and highlighted several items for board attention, including: a policy (listed in the packet as “3.1233”) that would allow up to 30 paid maternity leave days for employees who give birth; a change extending mandatory summative teacher evaluation cycles from every three years to every five years; a new graduation requirement adding civics and financial literacy components; a required moment of silence at the start of the school day; kindergarten retention rules tied to progress; and a requirement to designate a single traceable communication system for employee- and volunteer-to-student electronic contact.

Why it matters: several of the items originate in state law or recent legislation and require district-level policy changes to remain in compliance. Board members asked how the changes would be implemented and how staff would be trained to avoid potential professional-certification consequences.

Details and discussion: Miss Carver told the board that the communication requirement (cited in the packet as a direction to “designate 1 or more programs or applications as a traceable communication system”) would likely be met with ParentSquare (a platform that has incorporated Remind) or school email, and that the district would need to train teachers, volunteers and coaches on the chosen system. She noted the district’s technology lead had already contacted vendors to evaluate options. She said, “3.1233, requires districts on or before February to establish a policy that provides up to 30 paid maternity leave days to each teacher before, or or each teacher employee who gives birth,” and that the board could adopt the change now or delay until the statute’s effective date.

District technology staff member Mister Conyers cautioned that the bill’s wording left open questions that state lawmakers and legal advisers may clarify in a future session. He said the district must follow the law as written in the meantime and emphasized the compliance risk for employees who communicate outside an approved system: if a certified employee communicates with a student outside the designated system, that could trigger a report to the Education Professional Standards Board. “The intention of Senate bill 181 is the right thing, but the actual wording of it was probably not the best,” Conyers said; he added the district is awaiting guidance from the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE), KSBA and the local cooperative (KEDC) before fully rolling out policy adjustments.

Board members asked about social media and public-facing district communications; staff said the district can maintain a social media presence for broad announcements but must control or eliminate non-traceable direct communication between staff/volunteers and students. The packet also highlighted KDE guidance on medication administration and a statutory requirement to send a parent notice about sextortion (described in the packet as relating to “sextortion” for students fourth grade and up). Staff said they were awaiting KDE templates and guidance for that notification.

Next steps: the board received the first reading of the revised policies and staff said they will return a formal recommendation and any needed revisions at the July meeting. No final policy votes were taken on the packet at this meeting.