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MSBA counsel urges Lakeville board to prioritize missing mandatory policies, triage review, and use staff for technical edits
Summary
MSBA general counsel Terry Morrow told the Lakeville Area Schools board to adopt missing mandatory policies first, then address required reviews and legal-requirement policies; he urged a triage approach, a three-year review cycle, and delegating technical edits to staff to speed compliance while preserving board oversight on substantive changes.
Terry Morrow, general counsel for the Minnesota School Boards Association, spent the bulk of a Lakeville Area Schools work session on April 14 walking the board through a policy-audit triage plan and recommending practical steps to bring the district into compliance.
Morrow explained MSBA's model-policy program — which produces standardized policy language for districts — and described three categories used in his audit: mandatory policies that largely quote federal or state law (blue); legal-requirement policies that document statutory obligations but are discretionary to adopt (green); and recommended policies that reflect best practice (white). He said the first priority is to adopt any missing mandatory policies and then to update mandatory policies that MSBA flagged for review.
"If there was a missing mandatory policy, then it was our very strong recommendation, that's the first thing to tackle as a school board," Morrow told the board, noting mandatory policies can be difficult to reword because they often reproduce statutory text such as FERPA or Minnesota pupil-dismissal rules.
Morrow identified specific items he regards as "job one" for the district: adopt a student-journalism policy (policy 512) and a library-materials policy (policy 606.5) if they are missing, and address mandatory policies flagged as needing review. He also recommended a three-year cycle to rotate policy review (one-third of policies each year) and said MSBA can provide a spreadsheet and checklists to track status.
On process, Morrow urged the board to permit staff to carry out purely technical edits — updating statute citations, cross-references and names (for example, standardizing "Board of Education" to "School Board") — via the consent agenda so the board can focus its meeting time on substantive policy choices. Board members raised concerns about preserving each member's opportunity to debate content and about whether MSBA language has an MDE "stamp of approval." Morrow responded that MSBA language is vetted by counsel and that, where MSBA is unsure, it will pursue clarification from state auditors or MDE.
Administrators committed to produce a prioritized list of mandatory and legally required policies for the board and to prepare redlined technical edits for consent consideration at upcoming meetings. Several board members suggested a mix of rapid adoption (for missing mandatory policies) and selective deep dives (for items a member wants to change substantively).
Board members and administrators also discussed adoption mechanics — how many readings to require, whether to use emergency approval for items required by law, and how to provide public notice — with Morrow noting the law does not prescribe the number of readings for existing policies and advising the board to tailor the process to local needs.
The discussion concluded with a practical agreement: staff will circulate proposed technical edits and a prioritized "triage" list so the board can move toward compliance quickly while reserving substantive policy debate for targeted work sessions.
