Policy committee sets public-comment limit at 3 minutes, advances multiple district policies to June board

The Cheltenham School District Policy Committee on an administrative motion approved the minutes of the March 25, 2025 meeting and agreed to forward several reviewed policies to the full board for consideration at the district’s June meeting.

The committee voted to set the public comment time at three minutes per speaker under proposed Policy 903. Committee co-chair Zachary Epps announced the three-minute limit during roll call and the committee agreed to include that duration when the policy is published for public notice.

In discussion of Policy 903, a committee member identified as Mr. Epstein asked about the removal of language addressing “obscene” speech from the draft. Christina Gallagher, who presented the policy text, said, “this paragraph was the change, and, essentially, this change was made to kind of make it generally state that any kind of violation of district policy or procedure is grounds to interrupt public comment. So to get rid of all those definitions to make it cleaner, we simplified it to this paragraph.” Gallagher showed the revised paragraph on screen and confirmed it was the only change since the last read.

Committee members reiterated that administrative regulations (ARs) accompanying policies are informational and not subject to committee vote; they will be posted publicly for notice and comment. Multiple existing policies and ARs were reviewed and will be presented to the full board for adoption: Policy 903 (Public Comment), AR 2 20 3 (title change noted in the record), AR 227 (Controlled Substances), Policy 3 20 3 and Policy 3 51 (use of tobacco and vaping products and employee rules), Policy 8 32 (opioid antagonists), and a student recruitment policy referenced as 02:50. For each item, presenters and committee members reported either no substantive changes or only title/consistency edits since the committee’s prior review.

The committee approved the March 25, 2025 minutes by voice vote after a motion and second; the roll call earlier in the meeting recorded six members present. The meeting closed after a motion to adjourn.

The committee noted that the announced three-minute public-comment limit had at times not been strictly enforced at prior meetings; members said they would announce the new limit at the beginning of future meetings.

Several committee speakers emphasized that where ARs were updated (for example, to implement operational changes), these adjustments do not require board votes but will remain available for public review.

Upcoming steps: the policies reviewed will be placed on the June board agenda for formal consideration and possible adoption by the full school board.