The Clarke County School District Board of Education received a first read Thursday of the proposed 2025–26 student code of conduct, a sweeping update that adds a category the district calls “minor behaviors,” clarifies state-reportable offenses and introduces a district tracking tool tied to Infinite Campus.

District staff said the draft is a reworking of current rules that adds non-state-reportable, lower-level behaviors and gives teachers and administrators a way to record and respond to them. The changes were presented as a first read and will be voted on at the board’s May meeting.

District Director of Behavior Support and Discipline David Cobb (presenting) said the committee that produced the draft expanded to include teachers, administrators and students and collected fall and spring feedback. “A minor behavior is a non state reportable offense,” he said, noting the district will record those incidents in Spotlight, a module in Infinite Campus, to allow intervention and parent visibility.

Board members pressed staff on how the minor behaviors would be used and whether adding them to the code would standardize or unintentionally expand disciplinary practices. Board member Nicole Hall asked for “more insight into how we are applying page 9” and whether the code describes practice or only allowable options. “I want…that is what I want captured and codified so that anyone picking up any student discipline code of conduct can know that teacher A cannot jump from or skip past the first 10 menu items and go somewhere else,” Hall said.

Several board members asked for clarity on training and implementation. Staff said the code and school-level PBIS (Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports) are connected: PBIS defines expected behaviors at each school and Spotlight will collect lower-level incidents for local intervention, not state reporting. The district reported fall feedback (on the current code) and spring feedback (on the new draft) but said the spring survey drew relatively few responses.

Board member Linda Davis asked for legal clarity about replacing “parents and guardians” with the term “caregivers.” District counsel Scott Prewitt described the caregiver concept as linked to a “caregiver affidavit,” a legal mechanism by which someone other than a parent may be authorized to manage a child’s care and records without formal probate guardianship. Prewitt said he reviewed the draft and that some language changes were made to comply with federal guidance.

Members suggested follow-up work before the May vote: return the draft with (1) a legal definition and explanation of “caregiver” and where it applies; (2) a clearer description of how progressive-discipline expectations are taught and implemented across schools; and (3) more detail on how Spotlight entries will be used for supports rather than punitive reporting. The board directed the district to answer questions through the board question document and to bring clarifications before the May vote.

Board members and staff agreed to continue collecting feedback and to provide both policy edits and an explanation of training and implementation practices before final approval.

Ending: The code will return to the board for final consideration in May after the district supplies requested definitions and implementation detail.