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Board outlines broad policy updates including in-school college testing and a new recess rule
Summary
The school board’s policy committee presented extensive updates required by Virginia code and MCPS-specific proposals — including a College Board 'school day' testing policy, a new recess policy forbidding recess as punishment, and updated requirements for homebound services and threat-assessment training.
Lisa Stevens, chair of the policy committee, presented a slide-driven summary of policy work and described three categories of policy changes: no revisions, minor revisions and extensive or new policies. She said the format aims to make policy changes easier for the public to follow.
Stevens highlighted a new College Board school-day policy required by state law: "It requires Manassas City Public Schools to provide eligible 11th and 12th grade students the opportunity to take a college entrance exam during the school day," she said, and noted MCPS already covers the cost of those exams and has a testing coordinator at Osborne High School.
Other updates Stevens reviewed included explicit-instructional-materials procedures (parental notification and alternative materials when requested), tightened homebound-services certification language (limiting certification to a licensed physician or licensed clinical psychologist), and a proposed MCPS-specific recess policy that states recess "cannot be withheld, reduced, or denied as a disciplinary measure." She also summarized additions on threat-assessment training required by statute and a new policy to increase student financial-aid awareness and reporting.
Stevens said some of these policy items will return for more detailed committee discussion and the policy committee is scheduling follow-up meetings; the next policy committee meeting was set for August 18 at 4 p.m.
