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New handbooks and safety‑related policies approved, including cell phone limits and wearable panic alerts
Summary
The board approved updated parent/student, consequence and employee handbooks and several policy changes: a cell phone prohibition during instructional hours, new drugs/weapons/gangs policies, a wearable panic alert policy already in operation, and revised extreme heat safety rules for athletics.
The Dickenson County School Board approved updates to three handbooks — parent/student, consequence/behavior, and employee handbooks — and moved forward a packet of proposed policy changes that reflect recent state law and regulatory updates.
Miss Martin walked the board through handbook changes including printing fewer copies of the parent/student handbook and relying primarily on an online version, adding first‑grade letter grades to the elementary grading policy, emphasizing parent responsibilities, and adding new sections on cell phones (page 54), drugs in school (page 61), weapons (page 62) and gangs (page 63). The consequence handbook will be printed and distributed to students with perforated forms for parent acknowledgements.
Policy updates included five new policies and redline versions for review. Staff noted that GBGB (wearable panic alert systems) is now a state requirement but the division already uses strategic badges to provide that functionality. Revisions to the student athletic extreme heat safety policy (JJAag) will be shared with coaches and applied to summer practices. The board approved the handbooks and the proposed policies by voice vote.
