Governance committee sends several HR policies to full board, holds others for clarification

The Fairfax County School Board Governance Committee voted on Jan. 20 to send several revised human-resources policies to the full board while postponing or holding others for further work.

The committee approved forwarding Policy 44-40 (Performance Assessments and Evaluations) after members and staff negotiated wording that keeps statutory evaluation cycles in regulations and tightens the policy’s philosophy. Dr. Anderson suggested changing the philosophy to read that “the Fairfax County School Board shall require written evaluation of the effectiveness of all employees,” language the committee debated and revised before moving the item to the board. Mr. Frisch emphasized that the superintendent’s evaluation should remain a separate process and not be folded into the general evaluation policy.

Why it matters: the policy sets the board’s public-facing statement about evaluations while leaving technical details such as timing and cycle to accompanying regulations and state law, which vary for licensed instructional staff and for operational or hourly employees.

During discussion staff told the committee that the district has a large pool of hourly staff who generally do not receive annual written evaluations: “those 11 to 12,000 employees do not receive an annual evaluation,” a staff member said, and the committee asked that the regulation explicitly reflect statutory evaluation cycles (probationary evaluations in an employee’s first three years, then a different multi-year cycle for continuing employees).

The committee also approved sending Policy 44-60 (Grievance Procedure) to the full board after clarifying that the purpose sentence should read simply “to establish grievance procedures” and moving certain responsibility language into the policy’s philosophy section. By contrast, Policy 45-20 (Employee Certification of Employee Organizations) was set aside for further information. Members said they were unclear on who the certification process would cover and how the policy would interact with collective-bargaining units; staff described examples such as FEA and FCFT and noted FEU’s separate status.

Other HR decisions: the committee voted to send Policy 46-30 (Payment of Personnel Supporting Community Use of Facilities) and Policy 46-40 (Payment of Salaries) to the full board after small edits. During the salaries discussion staff confirmed that salary supplements and stipends are governed by separate regulations; members discussed whether the policy should reference pay frequency (biweekly or monthly) or simply refer to an established schedule, and agreed to the latter with clarifying regulatory cross-references.

Policy 49-20 (Workplace Diversity) was revised so that rationale language is moved into the philosophy and the final section is relabeled as objectives; the committee forwarded it to the full board. Policy 49-50 (Harassment) was not forwarded and will return for rework; members and staff agreed its purpose and implementation sections need clearer wording (for example, whether the Title IX office and Employee Relations are responsible for implementing training versus monitoring complaints).

What the committee directed staff to do: provide clearer cross-references to existing regulations, ensure that language reflects statutory expectations and any collective-bargaining constraints, and return revised language where the committee requested more detail. Several members asked that the clerks and staff compile the committee’s edits and the superintendent’s supporting regulations before the full-board review.

Next steps: the itemization approved by the committee will appear on the Governance Committee’s recommended agenda for the next full-board meeting; items held for further work (employee certification and the harassment policy) will be returned to the committee after staff provides the requested clarifications.