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Board agrees to work session, not a standing policy committee, to tackle policy review
Summary
After debate over whether to form a standing policy-review committee, the New Kent County School Board voted unanimously to schedule a work session to set structure and scope for reviewing school policies and bring administration and relevant staff into the process.
The school board voted Sept. 9 to hold a work session to establish how the district will review and update its school policies, rather than immediately creating a standing policy-review committee.
Board member Miss Dombrowski proposed forming a policy-review committee to ensure policies are up-to-date and to meet state requirements that policies be reviewed at least every five years. Board members expressed mixed views: some favored a standing committee or volunteer review, while others cautioned that certain policy areas require technical input from administrators and department heads.
“I believe that a policy review committee would provide the structure, accountability, and consistency necessary to keep our policy manual up to date,” Dombrowski said. But board members including Mister Barratt and Mister Vaught warned a standalone committee without administrative participation could miss legal or operational constraints. Superintendent Dr. Ross Nichols noted that policies are now visible in BoardDocs under draft and that administrators have already started work aligning policy sections to staff responsibilities.
The board amended the original consideration and voted unanimously to schedule a work session to decide a practical framework — scope, membership, and whether a standing committee is necessary — and to coordinate participation by the relevant administrators (finance, HR, instruction, facilities, special education and technology). Miss Cunha said a prioritized, scheduled review would be more efficient than ad hoc work. Several board members suggested the work session include the administrators who will implement or advise on policy areas.
Outcome and next steps: The board asked staff to circulate dates for a work session and directed administrators to prepare proposed structures, a prioritized list of policies due for review, and to show how required statutory review cycles would be met. Nichols said draft policies are publicly available in BoardDocs and that administrators already have homework to review their assigned sections.
