BVSD District Accountability Committee lays out outreach, policy and budget priorities for year

Board members heard a work-session report from the District Accountability Committee executive team on Tuesday night outlining priorities for the 2025-26 school year, including bolstering school accountability committees (SACs), targeted policy reviews and new family-engagement work aimed at drawing feedback from underrepresented communities.

The DAC executive committee said it is presenting a mix of operational fixes and policy-focused work designed to strengthen SACconnections to district decision-making. "We currently have 53 DAC members, identified for our 56 schools," DAC co-chair Allie Broin told the board; she said DAC leadership is continuing outreach to fill the three remaining school seats and is tracking representation gaps by income and ethnicity.

Why it matters: Board members said SAC representation and clearer pathways from SAC to DAC help the district ground policy and budget choices in site-level realities. DAC leaders framed their work as both compliance with statute and a practical step to produce usable recommendations for the board.

What DAC will do this year: The committee described four main efforts:

- SAC/DAC operations and training: DAC leaders said they are revising the SAC manual, retooling trainings and piloting virtual sessions so SAC leaders across the district get consistent orientation to their role. "We are intentionally building in a lot of ... connection there with the SAC," Felicia Gorman, DAC executive member, said.

- Three policy deep dives on a three-month cycle: The DAC identified homework as the first policy under review, followed by the basic instructional program and grading. The committee will collect SAC feedback via flexible methods (Google Forms and other guided prompts) and pilot guidance for SACs on how to engage in policy conversations.

- Family engagement and equity: DAC execs reported that families who qualify for free or reduced-price lunches and Hispanic/Latino families are underrepresented on SACs. The DACfamily engagement subcommittee will develop targeted recruitment strategies and co-design a school-family partnership session with district staff.

- Budget-UIP-Strategic plan alignment: The DAC proposed more structured conversations tying school improvement goals (Unified Improvement Plans) and district strategic priorities directly to budget discussions. The committee plans a joint strategic plan/UIP/budget session next month and asked schools to reflect on local discretionary (PTO/PFA) spending as part of that work.

Board feedback and next steps: Board members supported the direction and emphasized the practical need for clearer tools and materials parents can use to understand site-level finances and improvement priorities. Director Alex noted that feeding DAC early drafts of policy text helps the board and staff incorporate community input sooner in the legal drafting process. The DAC said it will return with additional reports and with a membership slate for board approval within two weeks.

Ending: DAC leaders thanked the board for its ongoing partnership and said they will follow up with requested data on where SACs are inactive and on the specific questions the board would like the DAC to surface for site-level budget conversations.