Board Hears Annual Policy Updates; Soltis Recommends Moving Changes to Consent
Summary
The Roanoke County School Board reviewed annual policy updates on June 5; superintendent counsel Jamie Soltis recommended moving the majority of code-driven changes to the consent agenda, while flagging a few items — including cell-phone enforcement, seizure-medication self-carry and advanced-math implementation — for additional clarification.
Doctor Jamie Soltis presented the annual policy update package to the Roanoke County School Board on June 5, summarizing changes driven primarily by amendments in Virginia law and Department of Education guidance.
Key items included: a requirement to adopt opioid-antagonist protocols (e.g., naloxone) and related employee protections; updates to school-crisis and emergency-response plans (including pandemic‑era closure planning and practice requirements for bleed-control kits when funded); a new requirement to practice sudden cardiac-arrest drills; updated hiring limitations for individuals with certain convictions; lengthened flexibility for long-term substitute assignments (up to 180 days with required mentoring and PD); and a staff-weapons prohibition extended to school-sponsored events. Soltis also reviewed new provisions on parental notices for dual-enrollment rights, an advanced-mathematics notification/auto‑enrollment process (top quartile state performance) for grades 5–8, and a new code-driven policy about student-athlete heat/exertion protection.
Soltis noted that several items require further Department of Education guidance or implementation rules; for example, the advanced-math changes rely on statewide percentile reporting to identify students in the top quartile, which can complicate scheduling and enrollment timing because statewide results arrive after some building schedules are set. He told the board that district staff and relevant teams are preparing operational guidance to implement new legal requirements.
On several contested points the school health advisory board weighed in: district staff recommended not allowing students to self-carry seizure rescue medication because seizures may render a student unable to self-administer; high-school students would be allowed to self-carry a limited set of over-the-counter medications (ibuprofen, acetaminophen and lactase enzyme) as recommended by the health advisory board. Soltis advised that most of the presented changes are ministerial and recommended placing the updated policies on the consent agenda, while flagging a handful (notably cell-phone enforcement language and the school-health recommendations) for fuller review if the board prefers.
Board members agreed to move most items to consent and asked staff for clarifying language on cell-phone enforcement, seizure-medication self-carry and the advanced-math scheduling implications. The board did not vote on policy adoptions at the work session; staff will present final text and a consent agenda at the next regular meeting.
