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Valdez board approves revised VHS handbook, sends policy 6155 back to policy committee
Summary
The Valdez City School District board approved the revised VHS student handbook with editorial changes but referred policy 6155 — the course‑challenge/mastery language that includes a 90% threshold — back to the policy committee after trustees debated replacing the percentage with a demonstration‑of‑mastery standard.
The Valdez City School District Board of Education voted to approve a revised Valdez High School (VHS) student handbook with agreed grammatical and clarifying edits, and sent draft policy 6155 — governing course challenge and credit — back to the policy committee for further work.
Trustee Kathy, who pulled policy 6155 from the consent agenda for separate consideration, argued that the handbook and the policy should be more inviting and less punitive in tone and that the course‑challenge provision’s explicit “90% score is required to receive credit” was too high. “I would say instead of saying 90%, they have to demonstrate mastery,” Kathy said, referencing the state statute’s language requiring demonstration of mastery rather than a fixed percentage.
Jason Weber, superintendent, and John Berkeley, director of curriculum, addressed implementation concerns. Berkeley said the policy language is intended as a guiding cover that leads into department action plans: “The action plan actually gets into the details … but it doesn’t mean things are excluded that the board feels are important.” He added that departments could define what mastery looks like for specific courses so the district can keep a consistent but flexible approach.
Board members debated the handbook’s introductory language — some trustees urged a more positive, student‑facing opening; others said the handbook’s primary role is to be a clear rule book. Trustees also raised specific content points, including cellphone rules and makeup work procedures; administrators agreed to make the targeted edits and distribute updated pages.
On the motions, the board approved the VHS handbook with the discussed edits; the clerk recorded the motion as passed. For policy 6155, trustees agreed to return the draft to the policy committee so staff and the committee can craft clearer language about “demonstrating mastery” and department‑level standards before returning it to the full board.
The board’s action leaves the handbook in effect with minor edits to be made and places the policy that sets credit‑challenge standards into a further review cycle, rather than adopting a specific numeric threshold at this meeting.
